


9 Lives a Slave

by pucktheplayer



Category: Original Work
Genre: BDSM, Bondage, Daddy Kink, Dom/sub, Forced Prostitution, Furry, M/M, Master/Pet, Master/Slave, Pet Play, Slash, Slave fic, Slavery, cat play, slave!fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-09 17:51:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4358579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pucktheplayer/pseuds/pucktheplayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Basil Winthrop wants is to attend CalTech in peace, but every time he gets touchy feely with another guy they end up turning into a frog, putting the young witch in a raw spot: Basil can keep it in his pants, or he can get it on with Fluffer, the family cat that his powerful father transforms from a bratty pet into a gorgeous boy who practically begs to 'play with Master' in exchange for some time on two legs.</p><p>Basil quickly comes to suspect the cat's history is darker than his dad wants him to know, a theory that's confirmed when the pair find themselves swept up in a twisted game of revenge, revealing dark secrets that could change how Basil sees his family forever--IF he doesn't end up suffering the same terrible fate as the boy cursed by his father long ago.</p><p>(A story of magical slavery.  Not actually a furry fic, just involves a human being who was trapped as a cat for many years but is human again.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Witches and the Frog

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, look, a new original slave!fic from me! Who's surpised? *glances around* What, nobody? Hm... Just in case you are wondering, this is not technically a furry story, which is why I do not list it flat out in the warnings. Yes, the kid turns into a cat and has some cat-like qualities about the way he moves and stuff, but when he is a cat he is 100% cat (and there is nothing sexual about it!) and when he is human, he is 100% human. I love the furry fandom, but it's just not my thing. I like my sex to be human on human. But there is kitty play/pet play and dehumanization. Just not ACTUAL fur. So now that this is all cleared up... On to the fic!

The way my dad and my auntie were glaring at me, you would have thought that I’d knocked a girl up, not magically transformed one stupid guy into a frog. Okay, sure, it wasn’t exactly polite, turning your one night stand all amphibious, but hey, at least I wouldn’t be stuck paying child support for the rest of my life.

“Oh, come on, dad,” I said with a groan, letting my head drop down onto the table with a thud. The vibration caused the Solo cup next to me to wobble, and I had to resist the urge to send the beer flying against the wall, ping pong ball and all. Stupid techie college and its stupid techie parties with its stupid techie alcohol—which, I had discovered, was way more potent than the home brewed stuff preferred by upstanding covens everywhere. If I’d been sober, none of this would have happened.

"You turned him into a frog, Basil. A *frog.* It's like a fairy tale gone wrong." He paused. "Not that fairy tales are particularly right in the head to begin with. But this was pretty bad."

“Cut me some slack," I snapped. "It was an *accident.*” That, at least, should be obvious. I wasn’t anywhere skilled enough to purposely perform a spell like that. The simple fact that my fondle-buddy had ended up as a frog showed that shapeshifting spells were out of my league. It was way easier to transform people into animals that go through a natural metamorphosis, like frogs and butterflies, than it was to turn them into, like, a giraffe or a buffalo or a parakeet or whatever. All of my magic, released in a big burst of orgasmic wonder, and the best I could pull off was a middle aged tadpole. It figured. This whole mess was a sign of my utter incompetence, not my fantastic power. “I promise that I’ll be more careful in the future.”

My dad’s eyes rolled behind his for-fashion-use-only hipster frames, and his familiar let out an amused sounding meow. I scowled and slumped down in my seat as the jet black cat shimmied out from underneath my father’s hand and sort of pranced over to me, stretching out devilishly then making a quick spin, wiggling his rear end in my face, his tail whipping back and forth in the air beneath my nose. I let out a loud sneeze, eyes beginning to water, and knocked him off the table, wishing that, for once, he’d land on his annoying ass instead of his feet. Fucking furball. Man, I hated that cat. Fluffer… What a stupid name.

“And why the hell did you have to bring *him* with you?” I complained, eyeing the ridiculous orange ‘Service Animal’ vest my family had managed to scrounge up for him with disgust. The fucking cat looked like it was dressed up to go trick or treating. “You know how important seeming normal is to me! My roommate is gonna think you’re a bunch of weirdos, hauling your precious pet two thousand miles to visit me at school.”

“Fluffer is not just a pet—“

“He’s your familiar,” I finished for him, rolling my eyes again. “Techies don’t have familiars, Dad. I get that you’re close to your cat, but the techies are still going to think it’s weird. Besides, who the hell has a cat for a Service Animal? Beaten wives who embrace the cycle of abuse and enjoy living with sadists?”

“Don’t talk that way about abuse victims, Basil,” my aunt said primly, picking Fluffer off the floor and cuddling him against her very ample bosom. He buried his face between her boobs. “It’s not their fault that their grandmothers never taught them how to properly curse a man's loins.” She glanced over at my dad, giving him a long, meaningful look that I didn’t even bother to try and comprehend. I’d learned long, long ago that trying to figure out why witches did the things they did was only good for one thing: headaches. “Teddy, I’m going to take Mr. Fluffer here for a little walk. Dr. Phil says that these sort of chats are best left to fathers and sons.” From the way she spoke, you would have thought she was quoting the great Merlin himself.

Ever since Aunt Regina had finally teched up and gotten an electronic television—none of that Witch Weekly in the looking glass bullshit—it had been nothing but Lifetime Network psycho babble all day, every day. Who would have thought I’d actually regret talking my aunt into joining the 21st century?

I leaned back with a sigh, balancing my chair on two legs and avoiding my dad’s eyes as my aunt marched back out into the main dormitories, leaving us alone in the rec room. It wasn’t that I was scared of him or anything. He was the most amazing dad in the universe, and I knew that he would tie himself to a stake and light his own body on fire before he would ever hurt me. It was just that we didn’t always understand each other, him and me. No matter how close we were, the fact was that he’d been raised by an Old Coven, while I’d spent my formative years with my mom, surrounded by techies. It was kind of like being a Nigerian Prince who spent his entire childhood in the Bronx and suddenly finds himself back in Africa amongst the tribe. Dad could explain the witching world to me all day long, and I would get it intellectually, but that didn’t mean that I really understood it deep down inside. The same way my dad knew intellectually that filling out a form on PizzaHut.com wasn’t some kind of arcane ritual that brought pepperoni and cheese on a garlic bread crust to life out of the ether, making it magically appear on your porch, but he still didn’t really understand why it took forty-five minutes for our order to get to the door, either.

“Do you *want* to end up like Harry Potter, Basil?” my father questioned seriously, obviously having no idea that 99.9% of techies would, indeed, *love* to be like Harry Potter. I really should never have encouraged my family to start watching techie TV. “Do you *want* to spend your life stuck in a school for witches only? Cut off and hidden away from the techie world that you love so much?”

“Are you threatening to take me out of school?” I asked, my face growing hot. I had worked way, way too hard to get here. There was no *way* that my dad was going to ruin this for me, especially not over something as stupid as turning one guy into a frog! When my Grandmammi was a kid, her coven had turned techies into slugs just for the fun of it. Of course, they hadn’t called them techies back then since it was long before the time of technology—they were still known then as ‘commonfolk’ if you were being polite or ‘invalids’ if you weren’t—but the point still stood. At least *I* had done it on accident! “I know that you’re clueless about the world outside the covens, but getting into the CalTech is a really big deal. Even techies themselves think of this as the ultimate technology school. Not just anybody can go here. I worked hard to get here. I’m not going to let you take me home.”

My dad let out a tired sigh, his big hands running through his thick, carefully picked out hair. Or it looked like it had been carefully picked out. It was probably a glamor. No real afro looks that perfect. Or maybe his really did. Because that was my dad for you. Just like good old Mary Poppins, he was practically perfect in every way. Soft, flawless skin the color coffee with a healthy dose of cream. Broad shoulders and strong arms with muscles that bulged even through his loose, hand knitted sweater—a sweater that brought out the brilliant green in his vibrant, hazel eyes. Almost seventy years old, yet he didn’t look a day over thirty-five. After puberty witches hardly age at all. I felt like a lump of coal sitting next to him, a dark skinned, scrawny thing with noodley limbs too long for my body and no muscles to be found. My eyes were so brown that they were almost black, a color so dark you could hardly see the pupil. My knotty locks would never puff up in the ephemeral, cloudy way that my dad’s did no matter how many hours I spent with a pick in my hand, which was why I just kept them braided close to my head. Man, he must have been so disappointed in what he found the first time he showed up at my mom’s door.

Of course I knew, intellectually, that my dad wasn’t quite as perfect as he appeared. He kept a glamour wrapped around himself like a cloak whenever he was out in the techie world, but if we were at home you’d be able to see the long, vicious cut that marred one side of his otherwise perfect face. It was a testament to his age, as well as to another era, a time back when a white person could slice up a black man’s face and get a handshake for their efforts. But that wasn’t his fault. He’d been born perfect, then some bastard had fucked him up. I’d popped out of the womb looking like a geeky, awkward loser with kinky hair and big teeth, and now here I was with all my dad’s height but none of his muscle or grace, not to mention none of his magic. Well, none of his magic that I could control worth a damn, anyway.

“Basil, I am all for you going to a techie college, even if these florescent bulbs do give me a migraine.” He glared up at the offending light, and I couldn’t help but smile a little. “You worked hard for it, and you deserve it. I’m not the kind of witch who lounges around stirring my cauldron and whining about the good old days when everybody believed we existed and we could dance naked through the woods with horns strapped on our heads, conveniently forgetting that whole bit about the Church roasting us like marshmallows. I *like* the techies, even if I don’t understand them. I loved your mom, once upon a time. But they can’t know about us. Which means that if you’re going to be around them, you have to learn to control your magic.”

“You say that like I have any magic,” I muttered.

Dad brought a hand to his lips, making motions like he was clearing his throat, but I had a feeling that he was really hiding a smile. “Basil, you turned a young man into a toad.”

“Not on purpose,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest.

My dad laughed, and I glared at him. “Oh, Base… Every teenaged witch goes through this, especially boys. It’s just happening to you a little later than most because you didn’t start tapping your magic until you were older. It’s not like you’re the first kid ever to have a little… reaction to your action, if you know what I mean. But until you learn to handle it, well, you can’t be ‘handling it’ around the techies, if you get my drift.”

My cheeks began to burn, and I dropped my eyes to the table. “I cannot believe that we are having this conversation. This is so embarrassing.”

“Sorry,” Dad said, not sounding all that sorry. “But it’s the truth. Your aunt and I had to cast a dozen memory spells on that boy to make him forget his little adventures in Kermitland, and the poor kid is still going to think somebody dropped something in his drink. We had to take out a good fifteen hours to wipe you totally from his mind. The Coven Council was not pleased.”

My eyes went wide, and I gripped the edge of the table so hard I was afraid it would snap. “Oh my God, you told the Council?! Are you out of your mind?!”

“Relax,” my dad said in a way that was probably meant to be soothing but totally wasn’t. “They’re not planning to pursue it. You’re not even getting a fine. Like I said, every witch-lad goes through this at some point in his life. They’re just not usually surrounded by techies when it happens.”

“Fines? Who cares about fines?” I said, releasing my death grip on the table and slapping it instead. “I can’t believe that you talked to those old fogies about my sex life!”

“I had no choice, Base,” my dad said, still smiling handsomely at me. The bastard. “You know that. Just be happy that we were able to wipe that boy’s memory out and that the Thought Police didn’t have to come do it for us. Involving those psychic psychos always makes things a little sticky. But the Council did make it perfectly clear that until you get this problem worked out, you’re not to be doing *anything* that could even *possibly* lead to a repeat of the situation.”

“Wait a second…” I said. “Are you saying that the Council is forbidding me to have sex?!”

“No, no, of course not,” my dad laughed, waving the words away. I relaxed. “We’re witches. Sex is an important part of stirring the magic within. They would never forbid anyone from experimenting. How else are you supposed to grow your powers? They’re just forbidding you from having sex with techies.”

Okay, obviously I had relaxed a little too soon. “Forbidding me from having sex with techies?” I said, feeling a little panicked. I was a teenaged boy, after all. “Dad, I’m the only witch young enough to strut around without a walker in the entire state of California!”

“You are the only young witch on this coast, that’s true,” my dad said, a wicked light in his eye that I didn’t like at all. Not one bit. “But you’re *not* the only non-techie. Well, not anymore.” His perfect smile spread across his perfect face, growing and growing until it was almost disturbingly wide. “Son, there’s someone that I want you to meet.”

o o o

I glared at the dormitory door like it had just given me a venereal disease. That’s what it felt like, anyway. Only instead of the Clap I had a bad case of the Council. I could not believe that they were doing this to me, all over one little frog.

“Will you please just tell me what’s going on?” I whined, turning to glare at my dad, who was standing beside me, looking as cool and composed as ever. Not that it meant anything. I’d seen him look just as cool and composed while he danced around a bonfire wearing a kilt made of flowers around his waist and my aunt’s menstrual blood on his forehead. “I know that things like spiritually guided intercourse and ritual orgies and celebrating the planting season by flinging your bodily fluids everywhere seems *normal* to you, but to those of us not raised by witches, you all seem like a bunch of perverts.”

“Just open the door,” he replied, still as stately as ever.

I sighed deeply, saying a short prayer to Jesus, then another one to Hecate, just for the hell of it. Please, please, please don’t let this be a repeat of the great science fair disaster of Lindberg Elementary. My father had decided to help me out back then, too, by walking around the gym, surreptitiously laying curses on all the other students’ projects. He told my mom later that he did it to make sure that I would win a prize. I guess he didn't realize that, as was techie tradition, everybody who entered the damn thing got a ribbon. By the time he was finished, paper mache volcanoes were vomiting endless fake magnum, half a dozen rats had been freed from their mazes and left to ravage the Chex Mix bowl, and there was a hole the size of a basketball in the ceiling where a rocket model of Apollo 13 had attempted to make it to the moon, only to explode upon liftoff.

I hadn’t talked to my dad for a week, and to this day he still didn’t understand why. I loved the man, I really did, but witches just didn’t get techies.

“Fine,” I muttered, images of bubbling test tubes flooding the floor with Red Dye #2 and RC helicopters spinning straight toward Principal Henderon’s head dancing in my mind. “Let’s get this over with.”

I stepped inside, frowning as I took in the sight of newly bared walls and a half-emptied closet. Okay… Obviously my roommate was gone for good. Was this what my dad had been so proud of himself for? Yeah, it was pretty impressive on a techie scale, getting a fish like me a room of his own, but my dad was a freaking High Priest for a coven that had been around over a thousand years. He could have cleared out the whole place with a single spell if he wanted. Besides, the guy I’d turned into a frog hadn’t even been my roomie. Okay, we’d been *in* the room, but he was just some dude I’d picked up at the caf. Surely my dad didn’t think that a room all to myself was actually going to make me *less* likely to transform cute guys into amphibians? All it meant is that I wouldn’t have to put a sock on the door while I did it.

“I don’t get it,” I said in a flat voice as my dad stepped inside, shutting the door behind us. “So you got rid of my roomate. How, exactly, is this supposed to—?“

“Hey there, roomie,” a throaty voice called out, and I let out a yelp as a boy suddenly appeared from behind my roommate’s stripped bunk, bare upper body rolling suggestively. Chin length blonde waves fell in his face as he cocked his head so far to the side that his ear brushed his shoulder, blue eyes looking me up and down like he was considering whether or not he wanted to have me for dinner. With his lower body still hidden by the bed, he rolled his chest again, somehow managing to look both casual yet uber sexual at the same time, and his tongue flickered out to brush his plump, pink lips. Damn he was hot. Very hot. But what the hell was he doing in my room?! “Looks like you and me are gonna be sharing this crib.”

I glanced over at my dad. His smile was almost as wicked as the blonde boy’s, and a horrifying idea idea rose up in my mind.

“Dad…” My voice sounded like I was taking a tough shit. “Please tell me that you didn’t hire a prostitute to babysit me.”

The boy let out a shriek, feigning shock as he touched a delicate hand to his slim, yet still muscular chest. “Theodore Basil Winthrop-Lewis the Third, did you just call me a ‘ho? You watch your mouth, young man. It’s gonna be a bummer if I have to tell daddy here what you *really* do in those Star Trek forums late at night—and we both know it ain’t practicing your Klingon.”

I choked, glancing nervously back and forth between the kid and my father. How the hell had this blonde bastard found out about my posts on the Star Trek forum?!

The boy laughed, another throaty sound, hair flying all about as he shook his head in a wild, disturbingly sexual way. A strange sense of deja vu rolled over me, as if I’d met this boy somewhere before, though I knew for a fact that I hadn’t. I would have remembered, for sure. After all, he *was* super hot and I was a teenaged boy. His arms and legs were a little too long for his body, just like mine, but unlike me you could tell that he was ready to grow into them at any moment. Though he couldn’t be a day over sixteen, he was already well muscled all over and there was just the slightest hint of white-blonde curls blooming on his well cut chest. Though he was shorter than my six feet by a good three or four inches, I was pretty sure he could take me in a fight. Not that most people couldn’t take me in a real fight, considering that my personal idea of a fight was having it out on the Nintendo DS, but something about this kid spoke of street smarts. He was strong, but not the kind of strong you get from a gym. It was the sort of strength that only comes about from hard labor and holding up liquor stores.

“Oh, Mr. Spock,” the boy moaned as he climbed up onto the bed, the movement allowing me to see him from the waist down for the first time. His thighs were just as strong as his arms, something that was easy to see since all he was wearing were a pair of leopard print briefs. He knelt in a strange way, with his knees spread apart and his arms between them, shoulders hunched and most of his weight on his upper body. The position had an aggressive, animalistic feel to it, and I couldn’t stop myself from taking a nervous step back. “Pleeeease, meld with me, my beloved Mr. Spock.” He squeezed his eyes shut and tossed his head back, feigning ecstasy. “I need it! I need it so bad! You say that you want me to live long and prosper, but how can I ever prosper if you won’t touch me on the *inside*?”

My face burned, and a rush of anger washed over me. “How the hell did you get ahold of my Star Trek fanfiction?” I shouted at him, then turned toward my dad, glaring. “Have you been spying on me?!”

My father blinked his big eyes at me, looking more than a little confused. “Your, uh, fanwhatsit?”

The boy’s deep, rumbling laugh drew my attention back to him, and not just because it made me tighten in not-so-appropriate places. “Aw, that’s so cute… Does Basil Wasil not recognize me? Maybe you need a little reminder?”

In a flash the boy was off his bunk and on mine, taking me down with him. I scooted away from him with wide eyes as he stretched out on all fours, blue eyes locked with mine, then suddenly spun, sticking his perfectly round buttocks in the air. He held them there for a moment, like he was showing off the goods, then began to bounce them, up and down, up and down. Kind of like what my dick was doing, except it was missing the “down” step.

I opened my mouth to speak, then had to shut it again when I let out a hard sneeze.

Wait a second…

“Oh my God,” I said, scooting even further back on the bunk, until my body was pressed flat against the headboard. “Fluffer? Is that you?”

The boy craned his neck around, buttocks still bouncing, grinning at me through his long hair like some kind of tiger peaking out through golden jungle brush. “Meow.”

Forget the stupid science fair. *This* was officially the craziest, stupidest, most humiliating thing that my father had ever done to “help me out”!

“That’s enough, Fluff,” my father said affectionately, slapping the boy’s… I mean the cat’s… I mean the boy/cat’s…. Oh what the hell. Slapping *Fluffer’s* butt like it was the most normal thing in the world. Fluffer gave me one last grin—along with a bounce of the butt—before hopping down off the bed and crawling over toward my dad, rubbing his body against the man’s legs like, well, like a cat.

“Look, I’m no fool,” my father said, a statement that I was more than ready to argue at this point. “I know that asking an eighteen year old boy to keep it in his pants is like asking the moon to forget its cycles. So I’m providing you with an alternative.”

An alternative? An *alternative*? Was he fucking *kidding* me? A subscription to Playboy was an alternative. A Russian bride was an alternative. Castration by scissors was a goddamn *alternative*. This was just *crazy*!

“You want me to fuck your “cat*?” I said, my disbelief ringing through loud and clear. “Your 'alternative' is me sticking my dick in your motherfucking *kitty cat*?”

“Master, tell that flake to stop talkin’ ‘bout me like that,” Fluffer whined, rolling his eyes up to look at my dad, his face rubbing disturbingly close to the family jewels.

My dad smiled and reached down, petting his head, just like he’d been doing back in the rec room. Only this time it wasn’t a cat. Well, I guess it was a cat, technically. But it sure as hell didn’t look like a cat. It looked like a mostly naked teenaged boy.

“He’s not *just* my cat, Basil, he’s my familiar. We’ve been over this. I would never suggest you have intercourse with a regular cat. That would simply be cruel. The poor cat!” My dad shook his head, looking sickened. Well, it was good to know that *something* sickened him. “We don’t do bestiality. You can have sex with him when he looks like this. Then, if your magic gets a little… out of hand, well, instead of turning some innocent techie into a toad, the spell will simply revert itself and he’ll be back to being a cat.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out what looked like a box of condoms. I say “looked like,” because I’d had magical vaccinations cast on me since I was a child. Witches didn’t need condoms, not for things like STDs.

“What’s that for?” I asked suspiciously, and he smiled.

“They’re shapeshifting spells. Twenty to transform him from cat into human, and ten to transform him from human to cat, just in case he decides to be a bad kitty and needs to go back in his kennel.” Dad nodded off to the closet, where a litter box, a small kennel, a bag of cat food, and a basket full of sparkly, feathery toys were sitting. How had I not noticed that before? I guess I’d been a little distracted by the hot, mostly naked guy lounging around on my furniture.

“I don’t see why he needs those human-to-kitty ones,” Fluffer whined, scowling a little. He went from ‘almost in the family jewels’ to ‘all up in them’ as he basically rubbed his whole face against my dad’s dick. “I told you I’d be a good pussy. Don’t you think I’m a good pussy?” He drew out the last words, giving them a sensual edge, and my father’s friendly smile took on a slightly wicked touch.

“Oh, I think you can be a *very* good pussy,” he murmured, stroking the boy’s head. Fluffer leaned into the touch then my dad suddenly grabbed him by the hair, jerking his head back until he yelped, though the sound quickly became a hiss. “You’re a very, very good pussy when you *want* to be.” There was a warning in my father’s gaze as he stared down at the boy, hand still holding his head at an unnatural angle, and Fluffer let out a whine, hunching his shoulders and dropping his eyes.

“Wait a second,” I said, a very disturbing puzzle starting to come together in my mind. “Are you two…? Have you been…? Oh my God, Dad, please tell me you haven’t been having sex with your cat?!”

My father released Fluffer’s head with a sigh and the boy giggled, turning those unblinking blue eyes on me. It was unnerving, that cat-like gaze in the body of a person.

“Aw, are we too kinky for poor wittle Basil? Does he need big, strong Captain Kirk to come kiss it and make it all better?” My dad reached out and casually smacked him across the face, just like I’d seen him do a hundred times when the little brat of a cat wouldn’t leave him alone… except this time Fluffer wasn’t a cat. He was a boy, and I couldn’t help but find it disturbing. It reminded me of the way some of the dads at the boy's school where my mom worked would slap their kids around like it meant nothing to them at all. Fluffer didn’t seem bothered, however, rubbing his red cheek on on his shoulder for a moment before lightly swiping the air near my dad with his paw—er, with his hand.

“Basil is your master now, Fluffer,” Dad said in a serious tone, crossing his arms across his big chest as he stared down at his familiar. “And your job is to look out for him, to make sure that he doesn’t get into *any* trouble. If you want to stay bipedal—and I know that you do—then you had better be a good pussy, or you’ll be back to litter boxes and flea spray faster than you can say ‘bad kitty.’ You fuck this up, and I swear to you, it will be the last time you *ever* experience the joys of having opposable thumbs.” My father’s face softened, and for a moment I thought I detected a hint of sadness, then it hardened again. “And I don’t think that you want that, do you, Fluffer?”

It was impossible to miss the fear in the boy’s big, blue eyes, though he quickly covered it up, tossing his hair and rolling his back like he didn’t have a care in the world. “No Master,” he said, voice overly casual. “I don’t want that.” He paused for a long moment then looked up, shoulders tensing. “Thank you for giving me this chance, Master.” The words came out soft and timid, not descriptions that I would usually associate with the psychotic furrball who spent his days chewing through my XBox cords and knocking my action figures off the shelves.

“Don’t make me regret it,” my father said, voice still surprisingly cold. From the way he pampered this mangy thing around the house, I'd thought they would get along a little better than this when Fluffer was in human form. Or I would have if I'd actually had a clue that my dad was magically transforming his pet cat into his own personal butt boy, complete with Marilyn Monroe hair and sapphire eyes. “And don’t forget your place just because you’re in that body," he said, making Fluffer nod rapidly. "It’s not really yours—not yet, anyway. You’re just an animal to me.”

At the last words, Fluffer’s cheeks went red and he hung his head in obvious embarrassment, though I really wasn’t sure why. He was, after all, an animal. It wasn’t as if my dad was insulting him or anything.

“Yes, sir.”

My dad turned back toward me, smiling widely as if he hadn’t just told me that his pet cat was actually a living blow up doll and it was coming to live in my dorm. Hell, what should I expect? He was a witch. This probably all seemed perfectly normal to him.

“So I guess that I’ll leave you two to get settled in. You can use your credit card to get him some clothes. Oh, and your auntie signed Fluffer up for all the same classes that you have, that way you can take him along with you.”

“What?” I said, standing up abruptly. It was bad enough, my dad waltzing in here thinking that he could dump his pet cat/kept boy on me without even *asking* me how I felt about it first, now he was trying to send him to school with me? So not cool. “He can’t come to my classes! He’s a *cat*!”

“I don’t want him staying in the dorms by himself,” Dad said, tone making it clear that this point was not to be argued, and I shook my head in disbelief.

“I’m ain’t gonna try and bug out,” Fluffer said sullenly, glaring up at my dad. “It’s not like you wouldn’t find me if I ran.”

“Damn straight I would find you,” my dad said cooly. “And *then* I would fix you—and I’m not talking about in the head.” His eyes dropped downward, making it very clear what parts he was referring to.

Fluffer grimaced, then chuckled nervously. “Hey, it’s cool, Master. No running. Master Number Two and I are gonna be just fine…” He crawled across the floor, attempting to rub up against my leg, and I jerked away. I was seriously not comfortable with all this. And yet… No one could say that this kid wasn’t hot, and if the Council caught wind of me even laying a finger on a techie, I’d be out of CalTech and back at coven school for sure. Maybe if I could just forget that this was Fluffer and focus on that beautiful ass then we could get along.

“Hell, once you’re gone, sex pot here can read me some of his groovy Kirk/Spock porn.”

Or maybe not.


	2. Getting Familiar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Political correctness disclaimer so I don't get attacked by 13 year old girls:** In the African American community, discrimination against darker skinned black people by lighter skinned black people is very common, especially amongst teenagers. The school where I teach is 98% African American, 2% Hispanic, and less than 1% anything else, so I see this discrimination a lot. I see how badly it hurts students, and I want people to be aware of it. As a white person who finds black people very attractive, I was shocked by just how MUCH discrimination goes on with teens in the black community, and I find myself really heart broken that these kids believe that their darker skin, which I find quite beautiful, somehow makes them less attractive to the world at large. That is why I am writing about it. It is very, very common for lighter skinned black kids to make fun of darker skinned black kids, and it is one of the things I have to deal with the most as a teacher. Students who are very dark are often told they are ugly and stupid or have racial jokes about their ancestry thrown at them, such as saying that they are fresh from the African plain or that their momma must have been a slave. Any student can be bullied in this way, because even black kids with a lighter shade of skin tend to be very sensitive to being called dark. In fact, they often go to great extremes to stay out of the sun and keep their skin as light as possible. Even more so than being overweight, being dark is the number one reason kids at schools like mine are bullied. So when Basil is sensitive about his skin color, please know that it's not me saying dark skin isn't beautiful. It IS beautiful. Unfortunately, most kids Basil's age do not believe that.

“So,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice casual, as if I wasn’t attempting to carry on a conversation with the humanoid version of my dad’s *cat.* “How have you been lately?” There, that wasn’t so bad. Just talk to him like you would a real human being, right? After all, he was basically human. I mean, he looked like a human, so he was a human. Totally. Not a cat at all.

“Eh, not too bad,” Fluffer said, frowning at the zipper on the jeans I’d loaned him like it was some kind of weird puzzle. “Had a little bout of the fleas last month. I had to have a bath, a real bath, with actual water, and that was a drag. A total bummer. Then I got scratched up by this tomcat who was trying to move in on my turf—as if I’d ever let some motherfucker take over *my* yard—and when they took me to the vet’s office, some ugly old broad wanted to shove a pokey thing up my ass. Not cool, dude, not cool. But other than that, same old, same old. Eating kibble. Sleeping on sofa backs. Chasing feathers on strings. The usual.”

Oh yeah, it was totally just like talking to a human.

“That… that’s great,” I said, giving him a weak smile. “I mean, not the whole putting a stick up your butt thing, of course,” I added quickly, “but the kibble and the sofas and stuff.”

Fluffer looked up at me, having finally managed to work his zipper up, and smirked. “You know, Master, you ain’t got to talk to me if you don’t want to. I dig it.”

“I think it would be a little weird if we never talked to each other, considering that we’re living together and all,” I said truthfully, though if I was perfectly honest I had to admit that I wasn’t so sure living in complete and utter silence would be much weirder than what we were doing now. Hell, I was having a conversation with a cat I’d spent eighteen years trying my best to ignore. Well, when I wasn’t yelling at it to get the hell off my stereo, anyway. God only knew what kind of embarrassing things Fluffer had seen me do. Talk about invasion of privacy.

“Well, you ain’t never talked to me before,” Fluffer said, echoing my thoughts as he grabbed a t-shirt off the bed and eyed it like might jump up and bite him. “Except maybe to cuss me out when I clawed up your stuff. So why start now?” He shook his head, chewing on his lip as he stuck a hand through one of the shirt’s armholes like he was testing the waters. “Dude, I forgot how fucking complicated clothes are.”

I chuckled and moved over to him, turning the shirt around so that it was facing in the right direction, at least.

“Things are a little different now, though,” I said. “I mean, hopefully you won’t be chewing on my wires anymore now that you’re a person—“

“I’m not a person,“ Fluffer interrupted sharply, his whole body tightening up like he was about to spring and his teeth flashing in my direction. I took a step back, wondering what the fuck I’d possibly said to make him look like he wanted to kill me. “I’m a cat. Not a person. A cat. I never said I was no person, you hear? I never did say that! Don’t you go telling nobody that I said that.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, holding my hands up in surrender. “Geez, calm down! Man, I knew cats were kind of prissy, but damn, man. I get it, you’re a cat, not some lowly human. Somebody phone the Egyptians, their long lost god has arrived and his name is Fluffer.”

Fluffer opened his mouth and then shut it again, looking a little irritated, like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Finally he let out a loud sigh and returned his attention to the shirt. “I don’t know what Master was thinkin’. This ain’t never gonna work.”

I was pretty sure he was right, but he sounded so sad when he said it that I couldn’t bring myself to agree. For someone who had just flipped out over being called a person, he sure seemed eager to stay that way.

“Look, I didn’t mean to offend you when I called you a… person. It’s just a little weird, having the cat you’ve spent your whole life sneezing around suddenly become a human. On the outside, I mean,“ I added hurriedly as he shot me a look. “I mean, technically I’ve known you for years, but in reality I don’t know you at all—“ I cut off, frowning as something occurred to me. “Wait a second… I’ve known you my whole life.”

“Yeah,” Fluffer said, looking at me strangely. “We’re regular fucking soul mates. What’s your point?”

“You’re young,” I said, eyeing his body. “I mean, you look young. No more than sixteen or seventeen, maybe eighteen tops.”

Fluffer looked down at himself, then shrugged. “I guess so. What does it matter?”

“When I was in coven school, Professor Fergus said that when you cast a simple inter-species transformation spell, the bodies reflect the age of the mind. Like the guy I accidentally turned when I, uh…”

“When you plugged his hole,” Fluffer supplied, making me blush. “Yanked his thang. Got your jollies off.”

“Er, yeah, when I did that… He turned into a frog, not a tadpole, because he was my age, not a little kid. So since you’re an old cat, you should be an old man, too.” I frowned. “Of course he also said that you can’t turn a non-sentient creature into a human. Or, technically, you *can*, but it won’t function like a human because it doesn’t have an animus.”

“You mean when they shoot water up your butt to wash out the shit?” Fluffer said, wrinkling up his nose in disgust, and I laughed.

“No, that’s an *enema.* An animus is, like, a person’s soul or their life force… whatever makes them, well, *them.* Animals don’t have them, in general. It’s the part of you that goes to Heaven or Summerland or onto another life when you die, depending on what you believe. Transformations affect the body, but not the consciousness, which is why when you turn a human into an animal they’ll have the animals instincts but still think like a human. But if you turn an animal into a human…” I shook my head. “Well, they shouldn’t act like you do. I mean, you act like a person. I know you’re not,” I added before he could protest. “But you act like one. Is that what familiars are? Animals with an animus?”

Fluffers rubbed his face against his shoulder in a very catlike way, looking a little uncomfortable. “Maybe? Sort of? I dunno. I mean, I don’t really know how all that shit works. I hang out in the witching room sometimes ‘cause it’s fun to chase the sparkles on the floor when Master’s crystals catch the light, but it’s not like nobody talks to me about that stuff. I just am what I am, you know? And I’m not sure why I’m so young. I’m always young when I’m like this. Maybe he likes me young so I am? I don’t know about being a really old man, though. I mean, I can’t be *that* old.” He frowned. “What year is it anyway?”

“Two thousand and fifteen,” I said.

I swear to Hecate it felt like the room’s temperature dropped about ten degrees. Fluffer, who had been a ball of energy since he arrived, constantly rolling and stretching his new body, froze up completely, body going stiff and tight in a very human way. He just stood there for a moment, mouth in a small ‘o’, then he collapsed down onto the bed, staring off at nothing.

“Fluffer?” I said, worried. “Are you okay?”

He didn’t answer, just continued to stare off at nothing, and I moved over to him, sort of squatting down in front of him and placing my hands on his knees. He looked about five years old right then, dressed in my too-big clothes with his angelic blonde curls falling into his round baby face. I reached up, pushing his hair behind his ears so that I could see his eyes better, and he flinched a little.

“Fluffer, what’s wrong?” 

He looked up at me then, and I half expected to see his big, blue eyes brimming with tears. Instead they just looked sort of… dull, I guess. Can cats cry?

“Fifty-two years.”

I frowned. “What?”

“That… That’s how old I am. I’m fifty-two years old.” The disbelief in his voice was apparent. “I… I don’t feel fifty-two years old.” He lifted his hands up, staring at them like they had some kind of secret to reveal. “I don’t *look* fifty-two years old. How can I be so old?”

I opened my mouth and shut it again, not sure what to say. ‘You can’t be fifty-two years old—it’s not scientifically possible’ would have been a sensible statement in regards to any normal cat, since in cat years that would make him, like seven hundred, but he wasn’t a normal cat. He was a familiar, and I had no idea how long they lived. Or really what they were. Another of the many coven lessons missed while I busy going to techie school. I did know that witches could live well into their two hundreds, though.

“And if… If it’s 2015, that mean… That mean… Oh my God, it’s been thirty-seven years.” Fluffer’s voice cracked on the words, and once again I thought he was going to cry, but he didn’t. 

“What do you mean, thirty-seven years?” I asked, feeling a little confused. 

Either Fluffer didn’t hear my question or he chose to ignore it, because he just looked at me and said, “Man, I don’t feel that old, dude, I really don’t. Hell, I don’t feel no older than the day when I—shit, maybe I *ain’t* any older.” This idea seemed to disturb him. No, that was too gentle a word—the idea scared him. It really, really scared him. “Maybe I ain’t getting any older at all. Maybe I never will. Maybe I’ll be like this forever… No.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “No, fuck that. I can’t be thinking like that. Master says he’s gonna give me another chance. He’s done a lot of things to me, but lying ain’t one of ‘em. You always get the hard, dirty truth from Master.”

That really didn’t sound like my dad—in general he was charming and gentlemanly almost to the point of manipulation—but I didn’t argue with Fluffer’s assessment. After all, we didn’t exactly have the same kind of relationship with the man, as could be gleaned simply from the fact that Fluffer called him ‘Master.’ The dad I knew told checkout girls and pizza delivery boys to ‘drop that silly old man “sir” stuff’ and call him Teddy.

“Another chance for what?” I asked, and Fluffer looked at me in surprise, like he hadn’t expected me to hear him, despite being less than a foot away from him.

“Shit, was I talking out loud? I must have been talking out loud. Crap, I’m talking out loud now! Fuck!” He rubbed his face against his shoulder again. “Sorry, Master,” he said, looking embarrassed. “I ain’t used to having a mouth that does more than meow. It’s kind of hard to keep what I’m thinking separate from what I’m saying.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I understand.” I guess I could see how sorting out thought from speech might be confusing for someone who isn’t used to being able to talk. “So what is my dad going to give you another chance at?”

Fluffer tongue flicked out of his mouth in a rapid, nervous gesture. “I, uh, don’t know if I should… I mean, I don’t want Master to…“ He sighed, reaching up and running a hand through his hair, looking surprised when his fingers tangled in the long locks. “So you’ve probably guessed by now that this ain’t the first time your daddy has, uh, what’s the magic fancy word for what he did to me?”

“Transformtion?” I said, and he nodded. “Yeah, I sort of figured from the way you two act this this wasn’t the first time.” I grimaced a little. “Which, by the way, is super creepy.”

Fluffer chuckled, eyes flicking down and then back up again. “I agree, Master. It’s totally creepy. But please don’t tell the big Master I said that.”

“My lips are sealed.” I mimicked zipping my mouth shut. 

“When I was a kitten, Big Master he, well…” Fluffer rubbed his face on his shoulder yet again. A sign of nervousness, I realized. “I guess you could say he adopted me. I didn’t like him too much at first—he was bossy, and I don’t take well to being bossed—so I spent a lot of time clawing up his stuff and peeing outside of my box, which made him not too keen on me, either. But we were both pretty lonely back then, since this was way before Big Master ever met your Mama and, at the time, he and Miss Regina weren’t speaking, so eventually we got pretty close. As they say, misery loves company.”

I frowned, having a hard time connecting the idea of being lonely and miserable with the image of my light hearted, social father. The words were basically the antithesis of everything he was.

“So one day, Big Master took me in the witching room and set me down on the altar. He told me that while it was nice to have somebody to talk to, he wanted to do more than just talk. And then he made me an offer.”

“What sort of offer?” I prompted when Fluffer fell silent. The boy looked down, his pale cheeks growing red. It was cute.

“He said that he would turn me into a boy for a day. I couldn’t sit on the furniture or eat at the table or anything too human, but I could be a boy for a whole day. He knew that there was nothing a cat like me could possibly want more than that. And in exchange, I would give him some company.”

The way that Fluffer spat the word ‘company’ was enough to know he wasn’t talking about tea parties and board games, but I guess I was feeling particularly masochistic, because I found myself saying, “And by company you mean…”

“Fucking. I let him fuck me stupid, and I could be a boy for a day. A once in a lifetime chance, he said. Told me that I was free to turn him down, but if I did then he would never ask me again.” Fluffer’s voice was surprisingly even.

I sat back, a little sick to my stomach. “That doesn’t sound like my dad.”

“Yeah, well, this was a long time ago,” Fluffer said quietly. “People, and animals, can change a lot in—dear Lord help me—thirty-seven years. Big Master has a lot of things now he didn’t have back then. A coven. A sister. You. Back then, I was the only thing he had, and he didn’t even really want me. It wasn’t like he woke up one day and said, ‘Hey now, I’d really love for that irritating shit of a kitten Fluffers to be my familiar.’ The Council gave me to him to keep. So his only company wasn’t even really invited over to begin with. He was stuck with me, whether he liked it or not. So might as well use me for all I was worth, right?”

“Wait, the Council gave you to my dad?” I said. Nobody had ever told me that. Not that I’d ever actually asked. Fluffers had been in the house my whole life, so I’d never really thought about where he might have come from. “Why?”

Fluffer looked away, and I got the feeling that this was not something he particularly wanted to talk about. “Who the fuck knows why those crazies do what they do? My point was that I loved it, being a boy. It was awesome. I loved it, and I would have done anything to get Big Master to turn me. Fuck, I *did* do anything. Anything he wanted, I did.” 

He sounded slightly disgusted, and I wondered just what kind of things he’d done. Witches were pretty liberal in the bedroom, and any place else they decided to get their fertility ritual on. Stuff that would have your average techie running for cover was considered tame in the witching world. It had really grossed me out when I was younger, but after seven years living with my dad I had gotten used to it, even if I was a little more conservative myself. Sink or swim, right? 

“For years we messed around, with him turning me at least once a week, sometimes more. After I pleased him, he would let me stay in boy form for the rest of the day, and even overnight. But one day…” Fluffer trailed off, a troubled look coming over his face. “One day I forgot my place. I had gotten so used to being a boy that I forgot that I’m really just an animal. And I ran. Or I tried to run.” He shook his head. “I was so stupid. As if Big Master wouldn’t find me. After that there was no more pretending. He would turn me, take me, and turn me back immediately. Or he would turn me and make me keep acting like a cat, no talking, no standing, no crying. And after you moved into the house, he stopped turning me at all.” The words were bitter, and I couldn’t exactly blame him. Obviously he’d really loved being a boy, enough to put up with some pretty creepy things. No wonder he’d taken such pleasure in clawing up my comic books.

“That’s horrible,” I said, suddenly furious with my father. How the hell could he have done this to some poor, innocent cat? “I’ve had to learn to accept a lot of stuff, but this is just fucked up. As if keeping something smart enough to pass as a human as your pet isn’t messed up enough, blackmailing it into having sex with you? That is just *sick*! And now he hands you over to me like a goddamn gift? Forget that. He has crossed the line.” I moved across the room and yanked open the closet. “Just let me find my looking glass, and I’ll give him a piece of my mind for you, Fluffer—“

“No!” Fluffer shouted, leaping up from the bed and sort of throwing himself in my direction. I let out a cry as he slammed into me, sending us both tumbling to the floor, bodies tangled up together. “No, please don’t call him!” He sounded terrified.

I pushed myself into a sitting position, shoving the shorter boy off of me and scrambling backward until I hit the wall. “Dammit, Fluffer, you’re not cat sized anymore!” I yelled, smacking my thigh to emphasize my point “You can’t just go launching yourself at people!”

“Sorry, Master,” he said, sounding more desperate than sorry. “But please, please, please don’t tell Big Master what I said.”

I rubbed my temples, suddenly feeling tired. It had been a really long day. “So, what, I’m just supposed to pretend I don’t know that my dad basically forced his pet cat into a non-consensual sexual relationship?”

Fluffer’s brow furrowed up. “A non-kin whosit?”

I sighed. “It means that he raped you, Fluffer. My dad basically *raped* you.” Saying the words aloud made me feel sick to my stomach, but they were true, weren’t they? I mean, yeah, okay, technically he’d given the cat a choice, but I really wasn’t feeling all that generous toward him right now. Not after hearing the kind of messed up things he’d done to Fluffer. I didn’t care how lonely and miserable he’d been. There were better ways of seeking out affection than turning your cat into a sexy kid and banging him.

Fluffer snorted. “Oh, please. He didn’t rape me. I told you, I wanted to be a boy, and I was more than willing to do whatever it took to get what I wanted. Look, Master, it was fair trade. And I wasn’t exactly all that against the idea to begin with. Well, not once I got used to it. I was lonely, too. It was a pretty good deal, until I fucked it up by running off like the fool I am. Now he’s given me a second chance. Says if I take care of you real good, maybe, just maybe, he’ll consider leaving me like this for good. Not making me a person or anything,” Fluffer added quickly. “I’d still be his pet, but maybe I could be his pet like this, you know?”

“You can’t keep people as pets, Fluffer,” I said, lip curling up at the mere idea. “That would be, like, super weird. Even for witches.”

“I ain’t a person. I’m an animal.”

I gestured vaguely toward his body. “But as long as you look like that, people are going to assume you’re a person, whether you like it or not.”

Fluffer shook his head, eyes caught somewhere between bitter and amused. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned real good in my life, Master, it’s that you can’t judge a person based on what they look like on the outside.” He pushed himself into a sitting position and crawled toward me, a wicked smile curving on his face as he ran a hand across my head, tugging lightly at my braids.

“So now that we’ve gotten all the bullshit out of the way, how you sit back, relax, and let kitty show you its tricks?”

My body tensed up as he leaned in a pressed his lips to mine. They were silky and soft, and his tongue was wet and firm at the edge of my mouth. Though my brain was pretty sure that this wasn’t a good idea, my body seemed to be working on its own volition, because I felt my lips slipping open so he could slide his tongue in. We kissed for a long moment, hot and deep, before he pulled away.

“Lift your hips,” he whispered as his hands began to fumble with the zipper on my jeans. I obeyed and his fingers grabbed the denim, digging in like claws, and he gave them a yank. The movement took my boxers with it, too, baring my half erect cock, which was slowly and steadily rising to attention.

Oh God, this was hot. Creepy, messed up, but totally hot.

Fluffer made a noise that sounded disturbingly like a purr as he dropped down onto his stomach, head poised above my dick. I moaned as he wrapped a hand around it, slightly calloused palms scraping against the sensitive skin of the shaft. 

“May I suck it, Master?” he asked in a desperate, throaty voice, dropping his head down to my cock and running his nose along the tip. “Please, may I suck it?”

I shifted against the wall, the way he worded the request making me a little uncomfortable. Well, in the head, anyway. My dick seemed to like it just fine. “You don’t have to ask me like that… And you can call me Basil.”

Fluffer tensed slightly, eyes flickering up to me. “I… I would really rather call you Master, if that’s okay,” he said, sounding a little nervous, and I gave a shrug. I wasn’t really up for arguing about it right now. We could always talk about it later, when my rock hard erection wasn’t half an inch from his soft, pink lips.

“Mmm, Master,” he said, running his tongue along the shaft of my dick in a way that made my whole body shiver. “Oh, I want to taste you…” He did just, dropping his head down onto the tip of my penis and giving a hard suck before pulling off with a soft popping noise. He moaned. “Want to feel your big, black cock down my slutty white throat.”

My hands clenched into fists at the words and I sat up straight, pulling my lower body away from the other boy. “What the fuck did you just say?”

Fluffer jerked, looking startled. “That I… That I want to taste you?” He sounded like a kindergartner who had raised their hand in class but wasn’t too sure of their answer.

“After that,” I snapped. “About my…” I gestured vaguely toward my still hard but slowly softening penis.

“Oh, um, I said that I want your cock in my throat?” Fluffer was looking really nervous now, and I couldn’t blame him, not if I looked as pissed off as I felt.

“You said you wanted my big, *black* cock in your slutty *white* throat,” I accused, and the boy flinched at my tone.

“Uh, yeah…”

“You think that’s funny?” I demanded, grabbing my jeans and yanking them back up onto my hips, no longer in the mood for these stupid games. This cat was going back to the pet store. I stood up and yanked open one of my desk drawers, pulling out the spells-turned-condoms my dad had left me. “You think I’m just going to lay there while you make fun of me?”

“What?! No, Master, no! I wasn’t making fun of you, I swear!” Fluffer said, eyes widening as I yanked the packets out of the box, spilling them across the desk. Which ones were transformation and which ones were detransformation? The glamour made them all look the same, dammit, and I wasn’t strong enough magically to be able to touch them and analyze their construction.

“Please, Master,” Fluffer begged, and I realized that he was at my feet, staring up at me from the floor. “Please, please, Master, forgive me. I swear, I wasn’t making fun of you!”

“I’m not stupid,” I snapped. “I know how I must look to you and to Dad and to Aunt Regina and to all the rest of the coven.”

“What…? I don’ t know what you mean, Master.”

“Like I just stepped off the boat from Africa!” I shouted. “My dad and my aunt are always babbling on about discrimination and white privilege and whatever other stupid liberal political crap they’re into this week, but what would they know about it? They’re practically white themselves!” I looked down at my hands, grimacing at the dark lines crossing my palms. “And then here comes Basil, looking like he’s straight out of Compton. I’ve never seen my *dad* get stopped by a policeman right outside of his own house and asked what he was doing in the neighborhood. I’ve never heard my *aunt* have to explain to a homeless shelter that she’s there to volunteer, not to sleep. And I bet I’m the only kid in the coven who has ever had a school counselor suggest that I think about joining the basketball team when I asked about getting a scholarship to college.” I kicked my desk angrily, cheeks heating up at the memories, and Fluffer flinched, hunching down as though I had kicked him.

“I-I’m sorry, Master,” he said, sounding really upset. Good, he *should* feel upset. He didn’t know what it was like, being the ghetto superstar of the vanilla wafer and Oreo show. As if being one of the few blacks in the coven wasn’t bad enough, I had to be the *blackest* of the blacks, too. “Please, I swear, I didn’t mean to offend you. I thought… I thought that you would like—“

“Being told how black my dick is?” I snapped, glaring down at him. “I can see it for myself, thank you very much. Nor do I need a reminder of how lily white you are, either. My dad can say all that he wants about skin color not mattering. Obviously it matters to him or he wouldn’t have transformed you into a poster boy for Aryan pride. I mean, you were a black cat!”

“He didn’t… I mean… My skin color wasn’t… Please, Master, I’m sorry! Forgive me, please!“

I sighed, collapsing down into my desk chair and letting my head drop back. “Yeah, whatever,” I muttered, rubbing tiredly at my face. “Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is going to work out.”

“Please,” he begged, crawling over to me and resting his head on my knee. “Please, Master, give me another chance. I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t… I didn’t know that it would upset you. If anything, I thought it would please you. The big Master and I… Well, I forget that you’re not the big Master. That we don’t have the same… history. That you might not like the same things. Please, Master, give me another chance. I swear I will do better next time.”

I bit my lip. Fluffer looked so upset, like his whole world would end if I sent him home. It didn’t seem right to have someone’s happiness depending so much on me. And it definitely didn’t seem fair to throw it all away over one stupid comment that he probably hadn’t even really meant anything by. He couldn’t have known what a sensitive issue it was to me. After all, I didn’t talk to anyone about it, not even my dad.

“Okay,” I said, and he let out a sigh of relief. “Just… try not to mix me up with my dad, all right? He and I are really different. I mean *really* different. And not just because I didn’t grow up with him. We’re from two different cultures. Stuff that seems normal to him seems absolutely crazy, or even twisted, to me, and vice versa.“ I gave a short huff of laughter. “Hell, I’ll never forget the time he walked in on me playing Zombie Apocalypse III and completely flipped his shit, throwing the game out the window and giving me this long lecture on how there was no magic more evil than necromancy and how even thinking about people performing such acts was horribly perverse and unforgivably demeaning to those who had passed on to Summerland. It was worse than the night my mom walked in on me watching bukake porn. Cultural differences.”

Fluffer gave a soft laugh, still looking painfully relieved. “Yeah, I guess so.” He paused, tongue flickering out in that way he had. “Um, just so you know, Master… I don’t… I mean, I wasn’t… I didn’t say that about you because I have a problem with you being black. Or brown, really, because you’re not black. As a cat I’m black, but you’re just brown. Dark brown. I just wanted to please you. Big Master isn’t the only person I’ve been with, and I’ve learned… Well, some black men like it when you… Well, you know.”

“When they fuck a white person and the white person whines about how bad they want their black dick?” I said, lip curling in disgust. “Yeah, I know. But I don’t like it. There’s this implication that having sex with black people is somehow degrading or whatever. Like if it was a white person then it would be normal sex, but since it’s a black person it’s dirty or perverted or whatever. And I don’t really find being thought of as dirty or perverted for my skin color to be a big turn on, even if it’s just implied.”

“I never thought of it that way, Master,” Fluffer said, brow furrowing slightly. “And I don’t think the men I’ve been with really did, either.”

“Yeah, well, they probably don’t live between two worlds like I do. Or four, I guess, in my case.”

“Four?” Fluffer said, and I shrugged.

“Yeah. Black and white. Techie and witch. I grew up a black kid in a black hood, now I live in a white one. I grew up in techie land, now I’m part of the witching world. It’s like I don’t belong anywhere.”

Fluffer opened his mouth then shut it again, shaking his head.

“What?” I asked, giving him a small smile when he shook his head again. “It’s okay, you can tell me. I won’t get mad again. I’m sorry about that. I was mean.”

Fluffer returned my smile, though he still looked a little unsure. “I was just gonna say… I understand how you feel. Not,” he added quickly, “that I would ever compare your situation to mine. I mean, you’re a person. I’m an animal. But even though I’ve been a cat for so long, I still feel like… I mean, I still want to be a boy, you know? I am a cat, sure, but despite what Big Master says, I’m not 100% an animal, either, you know? At least, I don’t think I am…”

“I don’t think you are, either,” I said, reaching out and running my hand through his curls, smiling as he stared up at me with surprised eyes.

“Really?” he said, a touch of hope to his voice. 

“Really,” I replied, my heart breaking a little at the happiness that flooded his face. I wasn’t sure what my dad had been thinking, forcing his cat to stay a cat all these years when all it obviously wanted was to be a person, but I wasn’t just going to sit back and accept it as one of “those witch things.” The pain in Fluffer’s eyes when he talked about wanting to be human crossed all cultural divides. “And if being a boy is what you want, Fluff, then I’ll make sure that’s what you stay, okay?” 

“Thank you, Master,” Fluffer said, eyes filling with tears.

What do you know? It turns out cats can cry.


	3. Summer Loving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank the commenter 'calibrate' for giving me the idea to add a little spice of necromancy to what was simply going to be a revenge story and adding a WHOLE lot of depth to this chapter! :)

**Teddy: July, 1978**

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, nigger?” The words were tough, a man’s words, but the voice was not. It was a boy’s voice, small and scared, cracking with fear or maybe puberty. Of course, it was hard to be tough when you’d just awoken somewhere dark and dank, a place where even your loudest screams would never be heard, chained hand to foot on a floor littered with hay and dirt and ritual marks.

“What’s your name, boy?” I asked softly, watching as fear and anger vacillated across his face.

“I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll kill your nigger ass! Keep those black hands away from me!”

I reached out, casually slapping his face. “I asked you a question, child.”

“Who the fuck are you calling child? I ain’t no fuckin’ kid, man! Let me outta here, and I’ll show you I ain’t no goddamn child!”

“No,” I said slowly, “I suppose that you’re not. After all, no child could have committed the terrible act you did. That was a man’s job. Never mind my question. It doesn’t matter. Whatever your name was before, that’s not your name any more. You belong to me now. I will give you a new name.”

There was a long silence before the boy spoke again, voice raspy with fear. “Wh-who are you?”

I took a deep breath and reached up, slowly pulling down the hood that had shielded the details of my face in the darkness, turning my cheek slowly into the candlelight.

There was a soft gasp, followed by a choked sob. Once upon a time such a fearful sound might have pierced my cold, angry heart—might have if the same sort of sounds didn’t haunt my dreams every night.

“I told you that I would come for you, now didn’t I? You didn’t believe me, but I told you. Now here I am.”

“I… I’ll kill you, nigger!” It was less a threat and more a plea of desperation.

“You’ve said that before. But it’s not going to happen.” I squatted down in the middle of the pentagram I’d chalked, staring cooly at the image before me. The boy was shivering, though not from the cold—he was sweating too hard for that. Fear, perhaps. Or something else. Someone else. 

_‘Why do you waste time playing, my little church mouse?’_ Her words swirled around me, caressing my soul, arousing me in places she would never again touch. My sweet kitten, gone forever. Yet not gone at all. _‘Don’t you know that you must take your prey by the throat?”_

I ignored her, turning my attention back to my captive.

“My name is Theodore,” I said, reaching out a hand and running it through the boy’s sweaty mop of curls. “Theodore Winthrop. Most people call me Teddy. But you will call me Master.”

“Like hell I will!” he shouted, yanking his head away from my touch. His cheeks shone with tears. “Stay away from me, you black skinned demon! Go back to Satan’s nest!”

“That night… You wanted to prove that you were a man,” I said, my voice cool. “Well, I am here to show you that you’re not. You are not a man, and you never will be.”

 _‘Yes, yes!’_ she hissed in my mind, the viciousness in her voice unrecognizable. My sweet kitten had not a vicious bone in her body, not Before. What had I done to her?

“Fuck you, I am a man!” the boy yelled, the words completely contrary to the snot and tears rolling down his round boy cheeks. “You’re the one who ain’t no man, you negro bitch!”

“You ended a life, a precious life, because it was ‘only an animal,’ as you yourself said. Now it is time for payback.” 

I felt her rolling around in my mind, thrilled by the words, and her intense pleasure made my cock rise, tenting my robe. I swallowed down the urge to retch.

“Wh-what do you mean, payback?” the boy said, eyeing my groin nervously. Obviously he had noticed my… reaction. Surely the little bastard didn’t think it was for his scrawny, worthless ghost of an ass. As if I could ever be aroused by the sort of creature who would… who would… Oh, my sweet kitten. Forever lost.

I blinked back tears, then turned my fury on the boy. “I am not a mongrel like you!” I leaned down, spitting violently on his pretty white face. “I won’t do to you what you did to her. Even animals deserve better than to be violated in such a way. But I will prove to you that what you did does *not* make you a man. When I am finished, *you* are going to be the one who is only an animal. We’ll see how you feel about us so-called ‘animals’ after a few years roaming the streets on four paws.” 

_‘No, my little church mouse,’_ she whispered, claws digging deeply into my mind. _‘You must keep it. It will be your pet. So that you will not be alone when I am gone.’_

“You won’t leave!” I shouted furiously back at her, unable to hold back my tears any longer. “You must stay with me. I called you. I command you. You cannot leave without my permission!” 

“Wh-what the fuck are you talking about?” the boy whimpered, whipping his head around, probably looking for the person I was speaking to. Let him look all he wanted. There was nothing to see. Her physical form was gone. He had taken that from me. “You fucking crazy, man! Let me go! Please, please, you gotta let me go!”

 _‘Oh, silly cat, he will never let you go’_ she whispered, and this time the words weren’t just for me. The boy stiffened, then began to scream, throwing his body about on the floor. 

I stood up abruptly and moved over to the alter, suddenly wanting this finished with. Revenge wasn’t turning out to be as exhilarating as I had expected. Or perhaps I was simply worn out from the weight of bearing a second person’s consciousness on my soul. Either way, there was no eagerness in me as I gathered my tools. I passed up the athame and went straight for the offering dish. I wouldn’t be needing a blade for this sacrifice. The blood had already been shed. It was fitting that this boy had literally struck the blow that would lead to his downfall. 

No, not ‘this boy.’ I had to stop thinking of him like that, or I would never be able to do this. The animal. He was animal, that is all. Just like I was nothing but an animal when he struck me over the back of the head with a crowbar, then used the end to slice open my face. Just like she was nothing more than an animal when he pried her oh-so-human legs apart and thrust himself inside. Just like we were both nothing but animals when he left us outside the drive in theatre to die, taking our tickets, her Raisinettes, and my humanity with him.

He was an animal now, my animal, and he would be an animal for the rest of his days. I carried the offering dish reverently, moving back over to the circle I’d cast. I shivered a little as I crossed over the edge of the roughly drawn pentacle, the feel of death magic making my bowels grumble and swish. I had never felt anything like this twisted power before. 

Coven magic was warm and full of life, drawn out of the ether and filtered through the constantly cycling earth, the four elements transforming its antimatter properties into something tolerable to beings who made their home in the physical realm. This magic, however, was completely untempered, yanked straight from the schism of nothingness into the physical realm, siphoned through the hole that is left when a mind that belongs in the ether is forced back into the physical realm.

Or so that was how the priests had explained it when I was in school, and how I understood it. In truth, since there was nothing physical about the realm from which magic was drawn, all of those allusions were meaningless. But they served their purpose of allowing a mind incapable of comprehending true nothingness to manipulate forces from a realm made out of absolutely nothing.

“Please,” came a hoarse, desperate whisper as I knelt down, carefully places the offering dish on the floor beside me, just out of the animal’s reach. “Please let me go. I… I’m sorry. I swear, I’m sorry.” Sweat trickled down his face, which looked even paler in the candlelight than it had when he had appeared out of the darkness on that terrible night. “I’m sorry. Just let me go.” 

Tears were running out of his hauntingly blue eyes, sweat sticking his long blonde hair to his face. He had a pimple on his nose, a stark reminder of his age and the only thing marring his almost angelic beauty—if you lived in a world that believed angels looked like blue eyed, blonde haired young men despite the much more terrifying description actually offered in Christian mythology.

He couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen, this not-quite-angel. He’d looked older that night, much older, when he held her down and slapped her face and called her a nigger bitch as he fumbled with the buttons on the fly of his 501 jeans. His hair had been pulled back in a ponytail then, and I’d watched it bounce against his Fonzie style jacket with dull, half-conscious eyes, unable to make my body respond to my desperate commands. 

We were supposed to seeing a moving picture about a biker boy and a girl who meet in the summertime, fall apart when they meet each other in school again, then come together once more for a happily ever after. She’d been so happy to once again be attending the sort of commonfolk affair she’d grown up with, so excited to cuddle up in the backseat and sing about summer nights and being the one that she wants.

 _‘Summer lovin’ had me a blast. Summer lovin’, it happened so fast,’_ she sang out in my mind, and tears rose up in my eyes.

“I met a girl, crazy for me,” I whispered, and the animal in front of me whimpered again, flinching at the words. Apparently he’d used the tickets he’d filched that night. Bet he wished he’d never heard of John Travolta now.

_‘Met a boy, cute as can be. Summer days, driftin’ away to those, uh oh, summer nights!’_

I sniffed and reached down to the offering bowl, dipping my fingers in the cool, lifeless blood, and then lifted them toward the animal’s head.

The door to the cellar slammed open, hard enough that the hinges screamed in protest, and I jerked, almost knocking over the offering. 

Regina practically leaped down the stairs, looking like something from a superhero flick in her lime green minidress and silver platform shoes. She was obviously dressed for the discotheque, which was where she was supposed to be, off with her weird, magicless friends, dropping acid and pretending to be commonfolk. She never bailed on the chance to party with the normals, and it wasn’t even midnight yet. What the hell was she doing home so early? No scratch that—what was she doing *here*? Because ‘here’ hadn’t been home to her in many, many years. It had never been home to me.

“Did you really think you could hide this kind of power gathering from me?” she demanded, unintentionally answering my question as to how the hell she ended up on the far edge of Angola prison when she was supposed be in Baton Rouge, more than fifty miles away. “In the very home I grew up in?” The words came out thick and Southern, not at all like the pretentious ‘New York chic’ accent she liked to put on to try and seem more world wise for her hippie buddies.

She moved toward me, but was forced to come to a stop at the edge of my circle. I had cast it alone, out of my own inner sanctum of power, without drawing from the coven at all. Nothing could cross that circle without my permission, not even my own flesh and blood.

“I thought it was a fitting place for the ritual,” I said cooly. “Years ago, his kind enslaved our family right here, in this house. Now, the plantation has been turned into a prison, and this is where he will pay for his crimes against our kind with a new sort of prison.”

The boy whimpered, and I shot him a disgusted look.

“Wow, that’s really ironic,” Regina said, obviously not impressed by my philosophizing. “Now, little brother, drop all the bullshit. You never slaved away a day of your life, so you have no right to take vengeance for that. Mammi would be disgusted by your tongue tonight.” She shook her head, looking down at the boy with a hatred that almost matched my own. “This is about Lucille, not crimes against ‘our kind,’ whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.” She took a deep breath, running a hand across her face, suddenly looking every one of her hundred and ninety-seven years. “Teddy, you have to stop. You can’t do this. Lucille wouldn’t want you to do this!”

“Don’t tell me what I want, Gina Bean.” The words were out of my lips before I could stop them, and Regina let out a soft gasp, stumbling backward a step.

I slapped a hand over my mouth, my whole body trembling. Had she just…? No. No, it wasn’t possible. She couldn’t… *I* was the one who had summoned her. *I* was the one in control!

“You always did underestimate me, church mouse,” I heard myself say, only I wasn’t saying it at all. They weren’t my words.

“Teddy… Please… Tell me you didn’t.” Tears were making their way down Regina’s face, her eyes a putrid mix of horror and disgust.

“I’m sorry, big sister,” I said, tears running down my own cheeks. “I tried to resist, I really did. But I loved her, so very much. She gave up everything to be with me. How could I not do the same for her?”

“What’s happening?” the boy on the floor cried out, thrashing his body about in a way that made me want to punch his lights out. “What’s going on? Lady, you gotta help me! Please!”

Enough of this. I turned and backhanded the boy in the face as hard as I could, making his head snap back. His eyes flickered and he fell silent. “About time he shut up.”

I don’t think Regina even heard my words—she was too busy shaking her head slowly back and forth like maybe she thought this whole thing was a dream. Or a nightmare, more like.

“How could you do that to her, Teddy? How could you violate her like that?” Her eyes dropped down to the boy then flicked back up to me, lip curling up. “This little bastard may have violated her physical form, but you violated her soul! She will never be whole again, Teddy! Never! For all eternity she will suffer the pain and guilt and shame of knowing that the one she loved devoured pieces of her being to feed his own selfish, physical wants!” She was screaming now, hands balled up in fists, glittery boots toeing the edge of the line of power. “You bastard! You sick, twisted, fucking bastard!”

I let out a sob as I leapt to my feet, running toward her and shoving her hard, sending her body flying across the room to slam against the opposite wall. “You don’t understand! I love her! I can’t live without her! I need her with me!”

“And you think that’s what this is?” Regina said, grimacing as she pushed away from the wall, leaving a smear of blood behind her where her elbows had caught most of her weight. “You think that having that… thing… in your head is being with Lucille? Because it’s *not*, Teddy! Lucille is dead! And she’s better off that way!”

“That’s not true!” I yelled. “She… She’s here with me. She really is…” I fell down onto the floor again, sobbing. “She’s with me, Gina. She has to be. Because if she’s not, I don’t think I can go on.”

“So you’re planning to keep her inside of you forever?” Regina said, her voice surprisingly even tempered. “You’re going to play with her, twisting her around inside of you, holding her captive, unable to see or hear or touch or taste or even think her own thoughts for all eternity?” She held up a hand as I began to protest. “And don’t even pretend to me that you believe she can think her own thoughts.” She gestured vaguely around her, looking disgusted. “We both know that this sick situation here is all you, Teddy. Lucille would never have done anything like this. She would have clawed your eyes out for even thinking of this. What are you even planning to do with the kid?”

“I’m going to make him mine,” I growled. “Like Lucille was mine. And then when I’m through playing with him, I’m going to turn him out on the streets to live like the animal he is.”

I hadn’t thought Regina could look more horrified than she already did, but apparently it was possible. “Teddy, you can’t do that. It’s a reciprocal casting, an exchange between two people. If you cast it on the boy without his permission it will make him…” 

“My slave,” I finished in a flat voice, my tone daring her to defy me.

“Teddy,” she whispered, eyes shining with fear. “This is wrong. You cannot use magic to enslave. It will mark your soul. Lucille… she will forgive you for the sick, selfish thing that you’ve done. But if you continue with this, you will bear the guilt of this act for all of this life and into the next and the next and the next. You will never be able to escape it. Even if you do survive the casting—which you very well may not—your wicked intentions will haunt your soul forever.”

“My soul is already marked,” I said coldly. “I don’t care what the consequences are. I will make this animal suffer as much as Lucille did.”

“You mean as much as *you* did,” Regina snapped back. “Lucille is *dead.* She wouldn’t be suffering at all if you hadn’t yanked her back into this realm to torture her innocent soul for your own pleasure! Now you would take witchcraft back a thousand years to a time of magic so evil it eats away at the soul like an infection, oozing pus and spreading its disease to everyone it touches? For what? To quench your thirst for revenge?”

“Yes.”

Regina staggered back as if she’d been hit, staring at me as if she’d never seen me before in her life. “What has happened to you?” she whispered, reaching out toward me. “Was it the necromancy? Did performing it do this to you? It must have, because surely there’s no way that my sweet little baby brother would commit such acts.”

I let out a cold laugh. “I don’t care if my soul rots away. I don’t care if I spend my next ten lives living in chains with whips upon my back. I don’t care if the Council burns me at the stake or if the gods reach down and smite me themselves. All I care about is making this bastard hurt!” I bared my teeth at the boy still unconscious at my feet. “I want him to hurt like Lucille did, like I did, forever!”

Regina reached out to me, tears running down her face. “It will kill you, Teddy. Performing this ritual will kill you. You’re so young, you’ve never seen… You’ve never stood before the Council… You don’t know what kind of power this sort of magic requires. The elements will not help you. Earth, air, water, and fire… They all have one thing in common. They are free. Wild and free. They do as they please. You cannot draw the power to bind someone against their will from such wild, untamed life. Slavery is a form of death. I should know. Unlike you, I have been a slave, on this very plantation.”

“I did it with Lucille,” I said flatly. “They said that I couldn’t, but I *did.*”

“It’s not the same as what you did with Lucille,” Regina protested. “That was earth magic, a natural trade between two beings dependent upon one another. A parasitic relationship, almost. In order to bind this boy to yourself, you will have to kill him and resurrect him again with power sucked straight from the ether. You will have to fill him with your own life, so that what life he has belongs to you, and no one else. There is nothing natural about what you are doing now. You don’t have the power!”

“Shut up, Gina Bean,” came Lucille’s harsh words, strange upon my tongue. “Teddy may not have the power all alone, but together we are as strong as any of those Councilmen!”

“But you’re not together, Lucille!” Regina said, voice thick with desperation. “You’re dead. Just a voice in his head. That is all that you are!”

_‘Ignore her, my little church mouse. Let’s make you a new kitten.’_

I knelt back down on the ground, giving the boy a hard poke on the side. Technically he didn’t need to be awake for the ritual, but I wanted to see the fear in his eyes.

The boy groaned, eyes flickering open. “Momma?” he said, looking around in confusion. “Momma, where are you? Are you there? Can we go home now?”

“Hecate save us,” Regina whispered, pressing her hands to her mouth with a sickened expression on her face.

I dipped my fingers into the blood again and reached forward, smearing it across the boy’s confused looking face as I began to recite the ritual binding a familiar to a witch.

“You and me, together now,  
Sacrifice upon your brow.  
Pass behind the curtain, friend,  
And find new life for you within.”

I sucked in a sharp breath as I reached out into the ether with the invisible, formless limb that made me Witch. I could feel it, like a hand or foot, somewhere over my chest, even though I couldn’t see it. I stretched farther than I ever had before, burying it in the thick, oily nothingness until I felt as though I’d shoved an arm into the mud right up to the shoulder. An image of the Stretch Armstrong doll I’d given my young cousin for Christmas flashed through my mind.

Now for the tricky part. In a normal dual casting, the familiar would recite the next lines. But in this case… I shook off my doubts. It would work. It *had* to work.

“Once a peasant, now a Lord,  
He grants this witch all he affords.  
In exchange for bounties fair,  
He takes upon him claws and hair.”

I jerked as the ether clamped around me, my physical self mimicking the yank from the spiritual realm, then let out a scream as the power rushed over me, slamming back into my chest, forcing its way into my body. Without my coven or the elements to ground me, it felt as though I was being blown apart, torn between the two realities.

In one world I sat on my knees in a dark cellar, blood running from my nose and spittle dripping onto my chin as my body twitched erratically. In the other I flew threw an endless chasm, seeing without eyes, hearing without ears, tasting without tongue, feeling without flesh.

 _‘Teddy!’_ Lucille screamed, her voice full of the same terror it had held the last time she’d been ripped away from me, only this time she was being ripped away *and* apart, her consciousness torn from mine in shreds as she tried desperately to hold on against the unconquerable pull of the ether. _‘Teddy, help me! Help me, Teddy!’_

I reached out, screaming wordlessly as I tried to grab some piece of her, but she was gone. No, more than gone. Gone implied that she still existed somewhere. When people died, they were gone. Lucille was more than gone. She was nothing. She had become part of the ether, mindless, shapeless power, never to be reborn again. And it was all my fault.

More tears ran down my face. The power was still ravaging my body, making my heart sputter and my orifices bleed, but I no longer cared. Regina was right. This was nothing like the ritual of love that Lucille and I had performed together. This was a hateful curse, and its power came from death. I’d thought my sacrifice would be enough, but the spell wasn’t interested in old blood already siphoned of its most powerful properties by my sad attempts at necromancy. It recognized my working as the evil it was, and since proper sacrifice had not been provided, it had taken what was left of Lucille instead. And it still wasn’t enough, because Lucille hadn’t really been alive. It wasn’t finished. Before the casting was complete, it would take me, too.

I would have to die in order to finish this spell.

“Teddy, look at me.”

I forced my chin to tilt up, wondering if my sister could see the terrible fear in my eyes.

“Let me in.”

“No,” I whispered. “Just go away. Go away and let me die. I want to die.” Lies. Pretty lies. If I had wanted to die, I would have simply taken my life and gone to live in Summerland with my sweet kitten. Instead I had brought her back to fulfill my selfish desires on the pitiful hope that I could have my cake and eat it, too.

“Teddy. Let me in. I’ll help you.”

Regina stared down at me, her face unreadable. I stared back for a long moment, then held out my hand. She took it, and I drew her into the circle.

She collapsed down next to me, a beaten expression on her face, then reached out and wiped the blood off of the cowering boy’s forehead.

“Don’t even think about it," I hissed, too weak to physically protest as she lifted her hand toward me. “I would rather die knowing that this bastard will suffer than live knowing he’s free.”

“I know,” Regina whispered, pulling her hand back. I relaxed for a moment, then let out a furious yell as she suddenly slapped me hard against the face, smearing the blood across my skin. “His commands, with blood I break!” Her power slammed into my chest. I let out an angry cry as I felt the pressure on my heart lighten and the throbbing in my bones start to quell.

“No,” I screamed, slamming my fists against the floor. “I let you in! I trusted you! You said you would help me! You liar! You bitch! You cu—“

“Abominite, debosh-ed whore,  
Agnise your sins, and foin no more.”

I sat back, eyes going wide at the sound of Regina’s voice. It didn’t sound like my big sister, not at all. Her usually soft voice was deep and throaty, the words sounding like they were being wrenched from her tongue. And they were obviously old words, words I’d never heard before. What was she doing?

Regina lay her hands on the boy, who was writhing and screaming at the top of his lungs now. The moment she touched him, he went completely still.

“Repeat after me,” she whispered, and I obeyed, my tongue stumbling over the strange spell.

“Abominite, debosh-ed whore,  
Agnise your sins and foin no more.  
Forever franked you now shall be,  
By all the strength of witch’s creed.  
I stith this curse within my womb,  
So from its hatred you shall bloom.  
I bind you tight, no longer free,  
Forever his your soul shall be.  
And so that ye shall mutine not,  
Transform ye now to cat from sot.  
As I do will,  
So mote it be.”

With those words we both let out a violent scream, and I doubled over in pain as the ether ripped through my gut, shredding the sacrifice I’d made, worrying over my womb like a dog with a bone—

Wait a second… My womb? …But I didn’t have a womb. I looked over at my sister, still doubled over in pain, and felt what was left of my heart rip into pieces.

“No!” I yelled, grabbing her and shaking her like a rag doll. “No, Regina, no! Take it back! Take it back!” I pulled her tight against me, sobbing into madly into her shoulder. “Please, Regina, please, take it back!”

“No take backs,” she whispered, voice hoarse from pain or tears or both. “Someone had to pay the price. I couldn’t let it be you. Not my sweet little brother.” She sniffled, staring down at what had been, just minutes before, a young boy.

“By the gods, Ted,” she whispered, burying her face in my chest. “What have we done?”

The little black kitten let out a meow.


	4. Through the Looking Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I haven't written on this forever, but a comment bringing up interesting questions about my world inspired me to pick it up again. Feedback is my BFF, btw. Enjoy! :)

“Okay, here’s how it’s going to be,” I said, doing my best to imitate my dad’s ‘I got this’ attitude by sitting up straight and lifting my chin in the aristocratic way he did when he meant business. Even if I wasn’t totally thrilled with him right now, he was still the most powerful and persuasive person I knew. “You are going to keep your big mouth shut while we are in there.” I pointed at the co-op across the quad, where Fluffer and I were seated on an out of the way bench, half hidden behind a big maple tree, just in case Fluffer decided to go nuts and try to leap on yet another squirrel. The co-op was the first stop on our little adventure down the rabbit hole of prepping Fluffer for his classes. I did not have high hopes for the success of this mission. “If you have to talk, we are not friends, and we are most definitely not boyfriends. You are a transfer from UCLA, and I lost the roommate lottery, ending up with your weird ass.”

Fluffer flashed his teeth in amusement, his butt twitching against the bench in a way I was starting to recognize as the humanoid equivalent of flicking his tail.

“That’s easy enough to remember, Master,” he said in a tone much too sweet to be attributed to a feline. “Since we *ain’t* friends, or boyfriends for that matter.” He paused dramatically then cocked his head until his ear almost touched his shoulder, a wicked smirk on his face. “Though I don’t see why we don’t tell them I’m your loyal catamite.” He bust into a weird, throaty sort of laugh that made his lips curl back and his teeth flash. “Get it? CATamite? You seemed to like the cheap hooker thing well enough in your Star Trek stories.” He lowered his voice in a sad imitation of Captain Kirk. “‘Come on, Spock, we need the money. Sucking the Romulan’s cock is only logical.’”

My face flamed. Why, exactly, had I agreed to help this little shithead get his Pinocchio on? Big blue eyes aside, this *was* the cat who spent his days chewing through my cords and spying on my Star Trek forums—not to mention hogging all of my family’s attention doing silly tricks in the living room while I sat alone in my bedroom re-reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for the forty-second time.

“I’m starting to see why my dad kept you in cat form 24/7,” I snapped, scowling at him. “Nobody’s blow jobs are good enough to make up for the other crap you use that mouth for. Maybe some good *will* come out of you following me to class—you piss me off enough, I might actually figure out how to get my transformation magic on without jizzing first. Bibbity bobbity meow, asshole!”

I felt guilty the moment I said it—one embarrassing joke was no excuse to threaten someone—but Fluffer dropped his eyes and nodded, smile disappearing from his face as his tongue flicked nervously across his pink lips.

“You’re right, Master,” he murmured, actually looking ashamed. “I’m sorry. The truth is… I call you Master out loud, but it’s hard to think of you as anything other than Basil. And no offense meant, sir, but ain’t never liked you very much.”

I let out a short laugh. “Really? I never would have guessed. It’s not like you terrorized me day in and day out or anything.”

Fluffer smiled at me, then dropped his eyes so that he was looking at my shirt collar instead of my face. It was like he was trying to be respectful or something by not looking me right in the eyes. As if our interactions weren’t already weird enough. “Hey, at least you got a kick out of knowing the Big Master was punishing me, right?” he murmured, and my grin faded, brow wrinkling up in confusion.

“Punishing you? For what?”

Fluffer raised his eyes back up to mine—thank the Goddess—and looked at me strangely. “For all that stuff I did. Chewing up your techie toys, pissing in your bed, clawing up your comics… You didn’t think Big Master let me get away with treating his son like that, did you?”

Yeah, actually, I had. In fact, I’d been certain of it. It was one of my biggest reasons for hating the furball. The cat could do anything it wanted, then when I told my dad, he’d just smile and wave it away like it was nothing.

“You did think he was letting it go,” Fluffer said in disbelief, my thoughts apparently written all over my face. He let out another of those weird, throaty laughs. “Oh, Master, I forget sometimes how young you are. Big Master punished me, all right. Whenever your daddy found out I’d been messing with your stuff, he’d take me outside, tie me up in the shed, and bring in that big old tomcat the neighbor lady keeps.”

“Sweet Pea?” I said, pretty sure I knew which cat Fluffer was talking about. It was huge and fat and mean as hell, but old Miss Suzie treated it like some cute little kitten filched from a motivational cat poster.

Fluffer nodded, looking amused. “Yeah, good old ‘Sweet Pea.’ Goddess, and people say my name is bad. Anyway, you know the old woman kept that tom locked up in her house day and night, but that didn’t mean he never smelled the lady cats outside. So when he got the chance to play the big man…” Fluffer shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed. “It wasn’t like he could actually get it up there or anything, but it was pretty freaky, being held down by the back of the neck like that, Mr. Fat Cat all up in my business.”

I made a disgusted face. “You let it mount you?”

“I didn’t *let* it do nothing, Master,” Fluffer said. “It was take it or fight him, and he was too big for me to fight. He woulda killed me if I challenged him. It’s what cats like him do. So I did what I had to.”

Ugh. I didn’t know much about cat sex, but what little I did know wasn’t pretty. I think I might have preferred being ripped to shreds.

“So every time you messed with my stuff, my dad gave you to some crazy tomcat to play with?” I said, shaking my head in disbelief when Fluffer nodded. “And you *still* kept screwing with my things?”

A small smirk appeared on Fluffer’s face. “Like I said, I didn’t like you much, Master. And tomcats don’t last long anyway.”

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly how much I did *not* want to know that, then shut it again as a shiver ran down my spine. Not the kind of shiver you got from the wind. No, this kind of shiver only came from one source: someone was casting a spell, and it wasn’t a nice one.

“Did you feel that?” I said, jerking my head around as I looked for the source of the magic, as if somebody would actually be casting a spell in the middle of the freaking quad.

“Mrrroow!” 

I jumped, letting out a yelp as I stared down at the pile of clothes and fur where a teenaged boy had been sitting only a moment before.

“Fluffer!”

The cat let out a hiss and struggled madly inside his t-shirt, his small cat body trapped in the clothes he'd been wearing. I reached down, grabbing him and pulling him free of the shirt, holding him close to my chest as I stood, my heart pounding. What the hell was going on?! How had Fluffer been de-transfigured? Or, considering what I'd felt a moment before, I supposed the real question was, by who?

The magic was building again, I could feel it, though it wasn't a full out shiver down my spine this time. More like a tingling in the center of my chest. Maybe transforming Fluffer—because there was no way this was a coincidence—had worn them out a little, weakening the spell? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing was for sure: Someone, somewhere was working magic, and its target was me.

“Mrrrrow!” 

I let out a cry as Fluffer swiped me with his paw, slicing through my shirt and scratching my skin, leaving three thin, bloody lines behind. 

“What the—“

The cat hissed again then kicked at my chest, leaping out of my arms and landing nimbly on his feet. He took off, ran for a few feet, then stopped and looked back at me, letting out another hiss.

“Oh, you want me to follow you?” I said, feeling like an idiot the moment the words left my lips. No shit, Sherlock.

I took off, doing my best to keep up with Fluffer, but the tiny cat was surprisingly fast.

“Hey, you want me to call Animal Control?” a techie called out as we dashed across the busy quad toward the dorms, no doubt assuming I had lost my cat.

“No!” I yelled over my shoulder, not interested in slowing down to chat. “It’s all good!” From the doubtful look on the kid’s face, I had a feeling that soon we’d have more than just magic on our heels.

My chest was heaving when we finally reached the dorms. Fluffer was through before I could even open the door all the way, and I stumbled in behind him, doing my best to keep up as he raced nimbly across the rec room to the stairs. I followed gamely, hoping to Hades that the cat had some sort of plan in mind, because I was officially pulling a blank. There were very few witches on the entire west coast, and certainly none at CalTech, but somebody was casting spells, and they had to be somewhere close by. This wasn't coven magic, I had felt the residual power from my dad’s coven enough times to know that. One witch was behind this, and even the most powerful of witches couldn't cast spells from more than a mile or so away without any help at all. 

Fluffer was clawing madly at our door by the time I made it up the stairs, and I ran over, fumbling with my keys. Shaking hands are not the best tool for unlocking doors.

The lock finally clicked, and I shoved the door open, slamming it behind me and re-locking it, adding the chain for good measure. As if techie locks were going to keep out magic. What we needed was some mistletoe, or was it Angelica root? Oh god, why hadn't I paid more attention when my aunt babbled on about herbs?

I was startled from my thoughts by a loud meow. Fluffer was standing on the bedside table with a condom in his teeth, somehow managing to look pissed off despite the cute little whiskers on his face.

My mouth dropped open in disbelief. And the magicfolk called techies stupid? ”A condom?! THAT'S what you had me run like a madman across campus for?! I hate to be the one to break it you, but when the techies call it protection, they don't mean from magic!"

I swear to Hecate, Fluffer rolled his eyes, though I’m pretty sure that isn't physically possible for a cat. He lifted a paw, managing to awkwardly point it toward himself, and I had to resist the urge to smack myself on the forehead. Right. The transformation spells. My dad had made them to look like condoms.

I reached out and took the spell with a shaky hand then collapsed onto the edge of the bed, my heart pounding so fast that I was pretty sure I was seconds from passing out. Fluffer landed lightly on the mattress next to me, rubbing his face soothingly against my arm and letting out a purr. You know things are bad when a cat as bratty as Fluffer is trying to to calm you down.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to concentrate, holding my hands steady as I gripped the little square package between my fingers. I could do this. It wasn't like I was actually creating the spell, or even calling up the magic. All I had to do was release it. Whatever commands my dad had spelled into it would take it from there. Nothing could possibly go wrong. Right?

An image of a frog letting out a terrified croak as it hopped madly around my mattress flooded my mind.

Fluffer meowed again, and I licked my lips nervously. I could do this. One... Two... Three! 

I ripped the package in two and a condom tumbled to the floor. My mouth dropped open. What the hell?

Fluffer looked as confused as I did, staring down at the rubber in disbelief.

"You grabbed the wrong one!" I shouted, though I knew that was bullshit. I didn't have any real condoms in my dorm. Fluffer hissed at me, not appreciating my obviously false accusations.

Another strange shiver ran up my spine, and I let out a cry, jumping off of the bed and slapping wildly at my back like that would somehow help. Hell, the thing wasn’t even *on* my back, you know, being completely non-corporeal and all. The feeling was much stronger than the tingle I'd felt before, stronger even than the first shiver I’d felt out on the quad, but so far it didn’t seem to actually be doing anything other than giving me a feeling of having ants in my pants. Somehow I didn’t think that was going to last.

"Oh God, Fluff, what's happening?" I gasped, suddenly feeling trapped in the tiny dormitory. "There's magic, I keep feeling magic, but I don't know what it is!" Tears rose up in my eyes, and I blinked them away, slapping a hand angrily against the wall. "If I was a witch worth his shit, I'd at least know what it is! But I don't, I don't know. All I know is that it's not good. Whoever’s casting it, they don't have good intentions."

Like that was some kind of revelation. You didn’t cast spells on people without their consent because you wanted to make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Fluffer stared at me for a moment then jumped off the bed, heading for the closet. He jumped over his box of sparkly toys, landing on…Oh! The looking glass! Goddess, I was such a techie! How could I have forgotten about the looking glass? All I had to do was get ahold of my dad. He would know what to do. He always knew what to do. He would fix this. He had to.

I ran across the room, dropping to my knees in front of my closet and grabbing the small, ornate looking mirror. I’d hidden it the back of my closet for a reason. Its edges were antiqued gold, real gold, molded with roses and swirling vines. On the back a strange looking man’s face burst out of the bark of a tree, staring out with eyes made of emeralds and sapphires, and a dotting of rubies swirled down the handle. I knew even without its magical properties that the thing would go for a truckload at auction. But as a magical artifact, it was priceless. 

"Through the looking glass I see, into the realms beyond just me." The glass shimmered and began to reflect light in ways that defied all laws of physics, casting tiny rainbows across the room. I focused on my father’s image, picturing his perfect ‘fro, his gentle smile, his big hazel eyes. My beautiful, perfect father. The total opposite of me. "Daddy, Daddy, can you hear me?! It's Basil! Dad, please, somebody's trying to cast a spell on me." Please let him be near a shiny surface. "Dad, can you--"

"Basil? Basil, are you okay?" My father's face appeared suddenly in the mirror, the spattering of rainbows around me disappearing. His just-for-looks glasses were gone, as was his glamor--I could clearly see the wicked scar tracing its way down his otherwise flawless cheek--and he was dressed in what looked like an old sweatshirt. "What's wrong, son?"

"Somebody's casting magic on me! They already turned Fluffer back into a cat, and they’re trying to do something to me, too. I can feel it sometimes, like a shivery feeling on my back, but I can't tell what the spell is! I don’t know what to do. You have to help me!”

I had never seen my dad look so scared. In fact, I don't think I'd ever seen my dad scared before at all. 

"Okay, Basil, listen to me. The first thing you need to do is use one of my spells to transform Fluffer back to human."

Anger flashed through me. What did he think I was, a total idiot? "Do you really think I haven't tried that?! The spell didn't work, Dad! The condom was just a condom. A regular old rubber! The kind that goes on your dick!"

Dad's brow furrowed, a look of confusion passing over him, like the words didn't even compute. "The spell didn't work? That's impossible."

"This is *not* the time to be egotistical, Dad!"

"No, really, Basil, that's impossible. It's a general purpose, multi-use termination spell, the kind you can pick up at any apothecary. All I did was key it to that particular morph. It's the human-to-cat ones that I had to actually craft. Somebody must have switched them out.”

Fear shot through me. “You mean they were in my dorm?” I glanced around, feeling disturbingly violated. “They came in my room?”

“That’s really not our biggest worry right—“

He was cut off as I let out a loud cry, almost dropping the looking glass as the magic flowed through me again, though this time the feeling didn't stay along my spine. Spasms ran over my entire body, making my face twitch and my shoulders jerk.

Fluffer let out a terrified sounding meow, jumping into my lap. I clutched at the looking glass like it was my only lifeline, unable to keep myself from letting out a sob as the shivering suddenly vanished again, leaving me feeling sick and weak. I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting to do nothing more than curl up on the floor. I was so tired...

"Basil! Basil, look at me!"

So, so very tired... If I closed my eyes for just one minute then--

I yelped as sharp teeth dug into my arm, making my eyes fly open. "Dammit, Fluffer, you little--"

"Basil!" The fear in my dad's voice was enough to get my attention, and I looked back down at the mirror. His normally mocha colored skin was practically white. This was very, very not good. “Listen to me. This spell… it’s like one of your techie diseases. A virus. The magic in your system is fighting it off. That’s why it keeps coming and going. It means that whoever is casting it, either they’re very far away or they’re not much stronger than you—but I would guess the latter since they would have had to break into your dorm sometime in the last two days. They’re not all that strong, but you’re not going to be able to fight them for long. They have training and you don’t.”

“Why is this happening?” I shouted, now in full panic mode. “Why are they trying to curse me?!”

“They aren’t trying to curse you, son,” Dad said in what I guessed was supposed to be a soothing voice. “Curses require sacrifices. They would need you in the ritual circle for that. This is only a simple spell. It can’t kill you. It can’t wound your physical body. It can’t take over your thoughts or control your mind. But whatever it does do, I’m going to fix it, okay, son?” Was I imagining things, or did his voice crack a little on those words? “I will be there before dawn, and I will—“

Whatever my dad was about to say was cut off as my entire body spasmed and the looking glass fell to the floor, the glass shattering into pieces. I fell on top of it, broken shards cutting into my arms as I jerked on the floor like I was having a seizure. Fluffer ran back and forth along my spasming body, obviously at a loss for what to do.

Another wave of magic hit me, and though it wasn’t painful in a literal sense, I couldn’t stop myself from screaming as I felt every bone and muscle and organ in my body wrench themselves out of place, twisting and growing and shrinking and splitting and doing things that no language on Earth has words to describe. I screamed again, only this time my scream didn’t come out as a scream. It came out as one very long, terrified meow.


	5. Trial by Council

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is separated into sections, each highlighting a different time at the start of Teddy and Fluffer's life together, and I wanted to note that the last section contains dub-con (dubious consent). I put a warning before that section, however, because it's not really necessary to the plot, so if you hate dub-con you can skip it and just know that for the first couple of years they lived together, things were not very happy in the household.
> 
> Also, before people get really freaked out and tell me how much they hate Teddy, please make note that in these flashbacks he is nineteen years old, has been permanently scarred in the same hate crime his lover died in, has been rejected by everyone in his family for 'sorcery,' and also helped perform a curse only a month or so before now that left a LITERAL hole in his soul, something that takes many, many years to heal even a little and makes you more likely to do bad things. So yes, he makes some very bad choices, but he is not the same person in these flashbacks that he is in the current story timeline involving Basil. Four decades can indeed change people, at least a little.

**Teddy: August 1978**

“Theodore Basil Winthrop the Second, on charges of Necromancy in the Second Degree, Resurrection in the First Degree, and Ritual Enslavement in the First Degree, how do you plead?”

I shifted, the invisible magic binding my wrists and ankles moving with me as I eyed the thirteen pretentious, self-righteous political wannabes before me. ‘National Coven Council,’ what a heaping load of bullshit. Anyone who knew anything about this so-called ‘new court for a new age’ was well aware it was more like a ‘new name for a new age.’ You know, considering that not a single member had changed from its days as the High Court of Covenmasters and the only difference in policy was that they had to pretend to grant you due process before burning you at the stake. Democratic process for witches, indeed.

The High Covenmaster—or was it the High Councilman now?—rose from his gaudy golden throne, staring down the at the low marble platform where I stood, idly scanning the stadium-style seating. The vast auditorium was over half full, witches from all of the covens having made their way to watch the sentencing of one Theodore Basil Winthrop the Second on the accusation of sorcery. Not a big surprise, considering who my family was.

“Well?” the High Covenmaster snapped, and I rolled my eyes in response, not interested in playing their little White Home, Liberty Lady, Superior Court games. It was obvious from the way I looked that I had already been judged.

I was naked and bound in magic, the hair stripped away from my body head to toe, and an inverted pentagram tattooed on the back of my skull as a warning to all witches that I was on trial for sorcery. None of that was what bothered me, though. I had known what I was doing when I cast that circle. I was indeed a sorcerer, and good witches should have warning.

No, it wasn’t the mark on the back of my head that made the shame and anger rise up within. It was the wicked scar winding its way down my cheek like melted wax, distorting my once handsome features and making me look like the kind of animal the white commonfolk claim that I am. And it was this scar that convinced me that my trial was over long before the Covenmasters’ bullies had dragged me to this place.

When the Thought Police had taken me away to ravage my mind for damning memories of that night, my face had been healed by one of Council’s precious cronies. ‘Healed,’ though, was not really an accurate description of what their spell did to me. 

Any decent healer would have repaired the flesh in such a way that it would be smooth and flawless again within a matter of weeks. But I had been marked by the Council, and it was no accident. In their minds—in *his* mind—I had been tried, found guilty, and would now suffer for blackening the good name of witches everywhere by using magic so brutal and savage that the Council had declared even records of its use be destroyed.

“I ask again. Theodore Basil Winthrop the Second, on these charges of sorcery, how do you plead?”

I had no reason not to confess. My beloved was lost forever to the ether, my sister was left infertile and childless, and I had been denounced as a sorcerer by my own flesh and blood. There was nothing left for me in this world.

Looking up with dull eyes, I opened my mouth to speak when, suddenly, the arching, twelve foot doors that led into the Council’s Chamber burst open with a blast of magic so strong that the intricately carved pieces of wood slammed into the marble walls, actually popping one of the hinges.

I sucked in a sharp breath as my sister walked in, no longer dressed in her silly commonfolk getup. No, she looked 100% Old Coven now, dressed in blue ritual robes embroidered with green thread. Tears rose up in my eyes as she climbed the steps to the platform, my chest swelling up as I fought back a sob.

Since That Night I had not seen her, hadn’t been sure I would ever see her again. Not after what I had taken from her. My father I could despise for his casual disregard and general disapproval, but my sister… I owed her more than my life, more than a thousand lives. She had every right to hate me, to call me Sorcerer, to rip my balls from my body and lay whips upon my back.

Yet she was here, risking her own safety, and for what? To be by my side as I was purged from the witching world? I had struggled madly, fighting the Thought Police and destroying any physical evidence, to make sure that no one could connect her to that fateful night. She should not be risking herself by being here!

“On charges of Necromancy, Theodore Winthrop declares himself not guilty. On charges of Resurrection, Theodore Winthrop declares himself not guilty. On the related charge of Ritual Enslavement, Theodore Winthrop declares himself not guilty.” Gina’s voice rang through the chamber, as deep and powerful as it had seemed that night.

The High Covenmaster pursed his lips, looking down at my sister like she was a fly on his egotistical shoulder. “And who do you think you are, High Priestess Regina, to speak on Brother Winthrop’s behalf?”

“You say that this,” Regina gestured vaguely at the thirteen golden thrones arranged in a semi-circle along the chamber wall, “is no longer the High Court of Covenmasters but the National Coven Council. You claim that you now practice democracy, no longer ruling us like monarchs or,” her lip twitched in amusement, “masters.”

“Indeed,” the High Covenmaster said, looking a bit wary. “Do you have a point, High Priestess?”

“My point, High *Councilman*,” I couldn’t help but give a little huff of laughter at her emphasis on his new title, “Is that as a former Covenmaster myself, I know where these new decrees have come from. You have taken them from the commonfolk, from the republic calling itself the United States of America. And in said republic, all citizens accused of a crime have a right to representation.”

I glanced over at her, surprised. I had been bound to a common-born woman, and even I didn’t know that. Apparently she was doing more than dropping acid on those little trips she took to visit her commonfolk boyfriend in the state of Harvard, not that I had any idea of where that actually was.

The High Covenmaster’s eyes had dulled, and psychic whispers too soft to be made out but loud enough to hear mumbling in the back of my head spread amongst the Covenmasters. Councilmen. Whatever. Most likely they were trying to decide which would be worse: having to deal with Gina right now or having to deal with Gina later after she spread the news to every witch in the country that her little brother had been denied his ‘rights.’

The decision didn’t take long—my sister was quite the talented gossip—and the High Covenmaster’s eyes sharpened as he gave a small nod. “Fine. You may represent the accused.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but Gina seemed pleased by it. “Though it may appear upon first look that Theodore Basil Winthrop the Second is responsible for the sorcery he is accused of, I offer up an alternative scenario.”

“And what is that?” the High Covenmaster questioned, sounding more irritated than interested.

“That he is being framed.”

Murmuring erupted all over the room as every witch in the place shared their opinion on *that* idea with the witch next to them, at least until the High Covenmaster raised a hand and called out for silence.

“As you know, Theodore is a very powerful witch, especially for a young man of only nineteen. I cannot even imagine how powerful he will be once he reaches full maturity. There are many in the witching world who would benefit politically and magically were he to be named Sorcerer.”

The High Covenmaster’s eyes narrowed. “An interesting theory, High Priestess, but nothing more than that. You have no proof that these rituals were some sort of attack against the accused.”

“And you have no proof they were not,” Regina replied, voice cool and collected.

The High Covenmaster turned his gaze on me. “Brother Winthrop, on July 29th of this year necromancy was used to return the animus of Lucille Clawswiper, the familiar ritually bonded to you, from Summerland. Since such a spirit cannot use a living being as a vessel unless the two were magically bonded in life, only you could have returned her from Beyond.”

My shoulders tensed. All true. This was insane. Regina needed to leave, to escape now before the Council started to suspect—and I had no doubt they *would* begin to suspect. They knew her womb had been given as sacrifice. It wasn’t impossible to do from a distance, not if you were able to get ahold of the woman’s menstrual blood, but I hadn’t even fully completed my training in the coven. The concept of a nineteen year old, male witch being able to sacrifice a nearly two hundred year old High Priestess’ womb without her permission was more than a little far fetched.

The Covenmasters were assholes, but they weren’t total idiots.

“Gina,” I whispered, leaning in toward her. “You need to leave, now. It’s not safe.”

Regina’s eyes flashed, a look of disgust crossing her face as she shoved me back. “Don’t touch me, Teddy,” she muttered. “And don’t you ever, *ever* try to talk to me about safety again.” Her fingers brushed lightly against her belly then she turned her attention back to the High Covenmaster, who raised an eyebrow at her. Gina gave a small nod in return, making my brow wrinkle up in confusion, then she continued speaking.

“Forgive the interruption, High Councilman. Obviously the accused is feeling a little nervous.” She cleared her throat. “But back on topic… When you declare what happened that night, I assume that means that you have spoken to the remains of the animus, and it has given you this information?”

A small whimper escaped my lips as I stared at Gina in disbelief. Did she really ask that? She knew Lucille was gone! She knew I had destroyed her! How could she ask something like that when she *knew* Lucille wasn’t even a whisper in the wind?

A tear ran down my cheek, and I didn’t bother to wipe it away.

The High Covenmaster straightened, looking annoyed. “As I am fairly certain Brother Winthrop knows, the animus of Lucille Clawswiper was completely destroyed that night. Her cycle was ended, and she will never be reborn. Our information comes from the Though Police. They found memories of a woman’s voice in the slave’s head, speaking from a place that his common mind thinks of as ‘nowhere.’ The voice matches that of Lucille Clawswiper. Since no human sacrifices were made to act as a vessel for the animus, it could only have been housed in Brother Winthrop.”

What the… Vessels? Human *sacrifices*? I had absolutely no clue what they were talking about it!

Regina glanced over at me, and I wondered if she’d heard my admittedly loud thoughts. Had my sister not been such a strong believer in freedom of thought, she could have been part of the Thought Police.

A memory rose slowly in my mind—a memory from long, long ago—and the world around me faded into the background as the images bubbled and bubbled like an overfilled cauldron left too long on the fire. 

I was only a child then, no more than five, dressed in rags and standing in a dank shack. A lightning bug was caught inside when Gramps closed the door, and I was giving chase as it swooped and ducked and turned and rose. My bare feet practically danced across the straw floor. I let out a gleeful laugh and Momma chuckled, giving me a big smile in return.

The bug was tired, I guess, because it landed and was staying put. I tiptoed up the the bale of hay it was perched on, reaching out oh-so-slowly, ready to grab the little bug up—

A loud scream erupted, sending my bug flying into the rafters, far beyond my reach. I stamped my foot and scowled down at the white man bound on the ground in front of the elderly sorceress.

“Please, please, lemme go. I swears to ya, if ya just lemme go, I’ll give ya anythang you want. Money, food, clothes, anythang!”

The sorceress didn’t talk back, nobody did, because what was the point? He was just some stupid common man. Didn’t even have no magic. Besides, nothing he offered would free him now. The ritual had already begun, and Old Man Jacob’s animus was swirling around the circle marked on the floor, searching for a body that was still warm but long dead. It should really calm down—it would have itself a body soon enough. Hell, this one might even last a week or two before it starts to rot and we have to find him a new one.

The ritual knife rose, the flash of my firefly glinting off of the blade as it came down with a whoosh, blood spewing across the circle as it slit through the common man’s throat.

Oh yes, Old Man Josef would have itself a new body very, very soon.

I jerked, gasping for breath as the memory began to fade. Except it wasn’t a memory, was it? Not my memory, anyway. I had never dressed in rags or spent time in a shack or even gotten the chance to see my own mother’s smile. Gina. It was Gina’s memory.

I felt sick. No wonder my sad attempt at necromancy failed so badly. I’d had no idea, none at all, of what I was getting myself into. The ritual I pieced together from a few scraps of old scroll and some fairytales? It hadn’t even begun to prepare me for the actual act of bringing back a piece of the dead. Because that’s all necromancy was, I realized now. Sticking rotting souls into rotting bodies. Once someone was really and truly dead, all the way dead like Lucille, there was no bringing them back. That was the business of gods, not men.

Another tear rolled down my cheek. Not only did I destroy Lucille, I did it for no reason at all. Even if it had worked exactly like I expected, Lucille would not have been returned to me. Just a rancid corpse with bits and pieces of her personality and a few of her memories.

Forget the mark on my head *and* the one on my cheek. It was the mark on my soul I would never escape.

“So your entire accusation of necromancy rests on the memory of one scared commoner who *thinks* he heard a voice from nowhere that might have been Lucille?” Regina made it sound like the most absurd thing ever, and when she put it like that it did seem pretty crazy. Except it wasn’t crazy, it was true.

Did I imagine it, or did the High Covenmaster’s lips curl into a small smile? My eyes narrowed as I studied him. No, I had to have imagined it—his face was a stony as ever, the heartless bastard. He didn’t care at all about Lucille; he just wanted to put me in my place.

The High Covenmaster’s eyes drifted off into the distance, and the psychic muttering returned, nagging at the edge of my senses. The Council was making their decision. The muttering stopped, and the High Covenmaster’s eyes focused sharply on me once more.”

“Fine,” he said tightly, tugging at his short, grey beard. “On the charges of Necromancy in the Second Degree, Theodore Basil Winthrop the Second is officially declared not guilty.”

All the witches in the room decided to play gossip girl at once, and the High Covenmaster was forced to raise a hand for silence again.

“He is still at trial for the linked crimes of Resurrection and Ritual Enslavement in the First Degree, and we have plenty of evidence that these acts of sorcery did, indeed, take place on the night of July 29th and that you, Brother Winthrop, were an active participant.”

I frowned at that. An active participant? That was a strange choice of words. Why didn’t he simply say they had proof I’d committed sorcery? I glanced nervously at my sister. Unless… unless they had proof that Gina was the one who performed the actual curse.

“Bring in the slave!” the High Covenmaster called out, and my lip curled up, fists clenching, as a couple of the Council’s cronies hauled in a large, wire cage. Inside sat a small black cat.

Fury rushed through me at the sight of the mangy beast and, even tied hand and foot, it took every bit of self control I had not to launch myself at it and rip it apart.

“Teddy,” Regina’s voice was soothing, though when I looked over at her I saw nothing but cold indifference in her eyes. “You need to calm down.”

She was right. If I went off now, who knew what would happen? The spineless creature had seen Regina that night. It knew she was there when the curse was laid, and it had already proven its willingness to speak to the Thought Police—though how they’d come away with nothing more than the one single memory of Lucille’s voice, I wasn’t sure. No commonfolk could shield their weak little minds from the Thought Police.

My chest tightened. It was over. Surely they had gotten all the memories they needed for condemnation from that white bastard. Except… if the Thought Police had taken the memories, then why wasn’t Regina on trial as well?

The animal looked at me, letting out a meow, and I bared my teeth in return, wishing I’d ripped it to pieces when I had the chance. But no, I’d released it onto the streets to live amongst the garbage in a pitiful attempt to make it suffer more, as if the Council wouldn’t be able to find it.

“Slave, do you know why you’re here?” the High Covenmaster asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he glared down at the animal. It meowed again, and the High Covenmaster sighed, turning to me. “Theodore, you will break the addendum on the spell and return the slave to its natural form so the Council can question it.”

I stared at him, confused. “I… What?”

The High Covenmaster’s eyes flashed with anger, and I took a step back, almost tripping over the bonds holding my feet.

“Honored Covenmaster,” Regina said calmly, “you cannot expect Theodore to understand your command since, as I have stated, he is not the one who performed this curse. He was born long after the last sorcerer was declared rogue and banned from our community. At only nineteen years, my brother would not know Forbidden Magic if he saw it in person, much less know how to perform it himself. If there is an addendum to the curse, you must walk him through how to break it.”

I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. All I could do was stare at my sister, at the sweet and lovely woman who had practically raised me, the woman I knew so well and didn’t know at all. Forbidden Magic. The spell she performed was forbidden.

No wonder they’d been so quick to shave me and mark me and get me before the Council. They believed that I’d performed a spell banned since before the Romans nailed half of our Celtic ancestors to their portable crosses, a spell considered so vile that its use was punishable by the total destruction of the animus. By the same thing I’d done to Lucille. Irony at it greatest, yes?

Witches don’t believe in good and evil the way the popular commonfolk religion of the day does—pain and suffering are as much a part of the natural world as love and happiness—but that didn’t mean we had no limits. And according to the High Covenmaster, the spell that Regina cast—what had they called it? Ritual enslavement by resurrection?—was one of them. 

Honestly, I hadn’t even known for certain what the charges against me meant, and now I knew why. Witches my age weren’t taught about these things, often weren’t even told they had ever existed at all. In fact, many covens purposely taught that certain magical acts were *not* possible, even when they were, simply because they didn’t want their students attempting them.

They’d told me it was impossible to bind myself to Lucille, to make her my familiar. They claimed that I was too young, too weak, but the truth was that they knew having a familiar by my side would increase my power exponentially, and the idea of someone both so young and so powerful frightened them.

“Theodore, are you listening to me?” the High Covenmaster’s voice was surprisingly gentle, and I jerked out of my stupor, trying to ignore the trembling in my hands.

“Yes, f—yes, your Most High. I am listening.”

“Whoever performed this spell, one thing is for certain: you were designated as master of the slave. While the ritual enslavement is unbreakable, even by the caster himself, the addendum to the spell that transfigured the slave into a feline *can* be revoked. Since it is your property, however, only you can do so. We need to speak to it, and we cannot invade its head so soon after the Thought Police without the risk of shattering its mind. You must return it to its natural form so that it can speak.”

“Not a fucking chance.” The words were out before I could stop them, and the High Covenmaster grimaced a little. “That bastard raped and killed my lover. It attacked and mutilated me. However this happened, that *thing* got what he—what *it*—deserved. Now its outside matches its inside: everyone will know he’s a cowardly pussy and an animal.”

There was a long silence as the High Covenmaster’s eyes dimmed again, though there was no sign of the Council’s psychic mumblings in my head. I wondered who he was talking to.

After a moment, his eyes sharpened, and he focused on me again. I opened my mouth, prepared to argue myself into the grave on this, when the High Covenmaster replied: “Fair enough.”

“High Councilman,” one of the other Covenmasters called out, looking disgruntled, “don’t you think—“

The High Covenmaster held out a hand and the woman fell silent, sitting back on her throne.

“We need to speak with the slave, so you must turn it. However, once we have gotten what we need from it, I will transfigure it once more into this form.” He paused. “And if you will do this for us, I give you my oath as a witch that this slave will remain forever as an animal, even if you are found guilty and sentenced to death.”

I let my breath out in a whoosh, a cruel smile forming on my face as I watched the animal cowering in its cage. Now there was no escape for the bastard. “That is acceptable, your Most High.”

“Repeat after me: As your master, from this form I do release.”

I blinked. “That’s it?”

I could have sworn the High Covenmaster actually rolled his eyes. “Yes, Theodore, that is it.”

“Um, okay. As your master, from this form I do release.”

The little bitch let out a meow that transformed into a yelp as he suddenly went from fuzzy kitten to the evil creature who took the life of my beloved Lucille. I clenched my fists again, hating the magic that bound me here. I wanted nothing more than to wrap my hands around that pitiful neck and squeeze and squeeze until his body went slack and his heart slowed and the life faded from those wicked blue eyes.

“The slave will come forward.”

The High Covenmaster’s lackeys reached down, yanking the door of the cage open. The cage itself was barely large enough to fit a human being, and the door was much, much too small for the bastard to do anything but crawl out on his hands and knees like the bastard he was.

He began to stand, wrapping his arms around his naked body as if trying to hide himself, but the High Covenmaster shook his head and the guards shoved him back down.

“You are a slave now. You will show respect for the Council by crawling.”

The bastard’s face went red, but he didn’t argue; he simply dropped his head and obeyed, crawling his way to the platform, though I noticed he stayed as far away from me as possible—a wise choice if he wanted to live.

He settled back on his knees, shaking shoulders hunched over to hide his chest while his hands did their best to cover his genitals. His face was truly flaming—there were few things more humiliating to commonfolk than public nudity—but I felt no pity. He had no such shame when he violated my love.

“Do you know why you are here?” the High Covenmaster asked again, but the boy—the animal—simply stared at the floor in front of himself, making no move to respond in any way. The High Covenmaster let out an irritated sigh. “You will answer me, slave, or I will bring in the Thought Police. You dared to fight them once when they attempted to gain memories of that night. They were forgiving enough to stop before your mind broke completely, even though they had not yet retrieved the evidence they sought. Do not expect them to be so generous a second time.”

My brow furrowed, a wave of confusion passing over me. Had the High Covenmaster just stated, out loud, in front of the very witch on trial, that the Thought Police were unsuccessful in their attempt to acquire the evidence they needed?

I glanced over at my sister. She was stone faced, not a hint of surprise or confusion over the High Covenmaster’s words.

“I ask you, for the last time, do you know why you are here?”

The animal raised his head slowly, the terror clear on his face as he met the eyes of the High Covenmaster. He hunched over even further, still trying to hide his nakedness, as if anyone in this room gave a dang.

“S-something about… about that night.” The boy’s whole body shivered on the last word. “And the neg—I mean, that man?” He looked over at me, and I stared back coldly.

“This is the trial of your master, Theodore Basil Winthrop the Second, for the dual crime of Resurrection and Ritual Enslavement.”

The boy whimpered, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling at the sound. My soul might be forever marked by my wicked act, but at least this animal would suffer.

“Do you understand what happened that night, slave?”

“The… the guys who got in my head said that someone cast a spell on me, um…”

“I am the High Councilman, speaker for the National Coven Council. You may call me Most High.”

“Most High.”

“Can you name the one who placed the curse on you?”

My whole body tensed, and I forced myself to stare straight ahead, eyes locked on the High Covenmaster, not a single glance sent my sister’s way. I could not give them even the slimmest reason to suspect she was involved.

The boy sat in silence for what seemed like eternity, thought it was probably only a few seconds. My stomach twisted, and I felt the sudden urge to vomit. I didn’t care what happened to me, but if this creature revealed that Regina was there that night… He’d already stolen my beautiful Lucille. If he took Regina, too, then I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions. With enough fury to fuel it, I was certain I could break these bonds coiled around me and snap the bitch’s neck before the Council’s lackeys could seize me.

“I don’t know, Most High.” The boy’s words were hardly more than a whisper, his blue eyes darting back and forth between me and the line of Covenmasters. “I was unconscious most of the time. And he… he was wearing a robe. I couldn’t see his face.” He paused, swallowing hard. “But… but his hands were white.”

My mouth almost dropped open in shock before I managed to get ahold of myself. I knew for a fact the boy saw me that night—I’d purposely revealed myself to him so he would know for what crimes he was suffering! He saw Regina, too, and *neither* of us had white hands. Did he really lie to the Council? Why? Why would he do that?

The psychic muttering began again, and after a moment, the High Covenmaster gave a sharp nod.

“Return to your cage, slave.”

The boy gave a dull nod and began crawling back to the box.

“The National Coven Council has come to a decision. Theodore Basil Winthrop the Second has been found not-guilty on all charges. The designation of Sorcerer is vanquished, and he is once more declared Witch.” The High Covenmaster waved his hand, and I felt the bonds around my wrists and ankles disintegrate.

I turned, wanting nothing more than to wrap my sister up in my arms, but she was already halfway to the door.

o o o

**Teddy: September 1978**

I slumped down on the couch, lifting the bottle to my lips. It was my third bottle today, and it wasn’t even noon. Rumor claimed that the commonfolk’s brew was stronger than the coven made stuff conjured by witches. Perhaps I should think about hitting up one of their liquor stores. I might as well make myself comfortable with the non-magical folk. I certainly wasn’t going to be welcome back in my own community anytime soon.

Council decree or no Council decree, my fellow witches saw only one thing when they looked at me: Sorcerer. It was a title I might never escape.

I ran a hand over my bald scalp, feeling the first vestiges of fuzz. My eyebrows, too, were on the edge of regrowth as was my pubic hair, as attested to by the horrible itching. Soon the mark of sorcery tattooed on the back of my skull would be covered by my thick, almost cloud-like hair, and no one would know by looking that I’d been arrested and tried for Forbidden Magic. Not that it mattered since every witch in the country knew, anyway. So things go when you’re the son of very important people.

There was a knock at the door, and I slammed my bottle onto the coffee table, scowling. If it was those Dame Scouts or whatever selling their fucking cookies again, I was going to be having Scout for dinner.

I pushed myself off the sofa to my feet, teetering a little as I made my way to the door dressed in nothing but a loose pair of boxers. A teenaged negro boy with a pentagram on his skull, wearing only underwear; I bet that would scare the little bitches away for—

That thought cut off abruptly as I opened the door, jaw clenching as I found myself face to face with his Royal Most High Grooviness or whatever the heck he was calling himself these days. By his side was a small pet carrier—a pet carrier just about the right size to hold a small, black cat.

“Hello, Theodore,” the High Covenmaster said in a cool tone, not waiting for my permission to enter. He simply pushed me aside, nearly sending me toppling from my drunkenness, then shut the door behind himself.

“Hello, Father,” I replied, my words just as cool. Okay, and maybe a little slurred. “How is the great Theodore Basil Winthrop the First today?”

“Better than you, it seems,” he said, lip turning up in disgust. “You smell like a winery.”

“You smell like a jerk.” I reached up, fingers lightly brushing the scar permanently healed into my cheek. “Don’t think I don’t know you were behind this. What are you doing here?”

“I am simply here to make a delivery,” the High Covenmaster said, holding up the carrier. The cat inside let out a frightened meow.

I bared my teeth. “That animal is a racist and a rapist. Your pearly white skin may make this hard to comprehend, but I’m not interested in having *that* in my home.” I shook my head, disgusted. “Though considering that your wife, the mother of your child, was burned to death by the Klu Klux Klan, I’d think you could empathize.”

The High Covenmaster frowned, eyes cold and hard. Not that they were usually anything else. “I know what you did, Theodore. What you and your half-sister did together, though there is no doubt in my mind that you dragged Regina into it.”

I swallowed, heart speeding up. “I don’t know what—“

“Don’t play games with me, son. Your sister and I worked together so that you would walk away from that trial with your life. We shielded the slave’s mind from the Thought Police, we came up with an alternative scenario for what happened, we made certain that the slave was called to testify, and we guaranteed that when he testified, he would not dare to give you up. I protected you.”

I laughed, collapsing down onto the couch. “Protected me? You *protected* me? Please. You protected yourself. There’s no way they would have let you keep your seat on the Council had your own flesh and blood been declared Sorcerer.”

A pained look crossed the High Covenmaster’s face, and when he spoke his voice was soft. “Do you really believe that, Theodore? You are my son—I love you.”

I touched my scarred cheek again and laughed once more, an almost maniacal sound. “Whatever you say, Daddy.”

The High Covenmaster’s face hardened again. “Fine. Believe what you wish. But you are a fool if you thought you’d come out of this completely unpunished. Your half-sister has suffered the most terrible fate that can befall a witch, a sacrifice she gave freely for you. Now you, too, will suffer the pain of your actions.”

He set the carrier down on the coffee table, popping open the little door. “Come out, slave.”

From the crate crept the nightmare that woke me sweating in the night. Only instead of bright, blue eyes these were dark and brown; and instead of blonde waves there was a carpet of black fur.

“He belongs to you, now and forever. He is your slave, in all shapes and forms. Nothing can break the curse, not even yourself. You will keep him—as your pet, as your slave, as a familiar, it matters not to me—but he will live with you. The cat form is only a simple transformation spell, but I have also cast a spell on the slave that will tell me if you abandon him.

“Burn at the stake,” I snapped, glaring furiously at the High Covenmaster. “I will not have *this*,” I grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck and lifted him into the air, eliciting a wail, “in my home!”

“You will,” the High Covenmaster said cooly, “or I will tell the rest of the Council about Regina’s part in all of this.”

o o o

_The next section contains dub-con (dubious consent, aka sexual activity that borders on non-consensual). If you really dislike dub-con, you can skip it because it’s basically a PWP section, and as long as you know that Teddy and Fluffer had some rather… rough times at the beginning of their relationship (aka, it was a living hell for several years before they started to get along), it’s not 100% necessary for the plot._

o o o

**Teddy: August 1979**

I tossed another empty bottle to the floor. Not that it mattered considering the living room already looked like the home of someone who spent their days pushing a shopping cart full of garbage around town begging for change.

At least the drinking had slowed down a little once I gave in and hit the commonfolk store for a few bottles of amber goodness. They didn’t have many abilities, those magic-less freaks, but making alcohol was definitely up there. In fact, it might have been their greatest triumph of all.

Aside from the whole Watergate thing, anyway. That had to be some kind of major achievement considering it had been over four years since it went down and they were still bragging about it on the moving picture box. Though what, exactly, it had to do with deep oral sex, I wasn’t certain.

“So, Bitch, I take it this President Nixon guy is a lover of men?”

The cat, curled up on the sofa cushion beside me, meowed in a way that I swear translated into a rolling of the eyes.

“Well, they keep talking about deep throating, and it doesn’t look like any dames were involved.”

Bitch gave me a Look, and I scowled. “Oh, cut me a break. I’ve only had the moving picture box for a week. How the hell should I know who’s deep throating who in the White Home?” I sighed. “Go turn it off.”

Another meow and Bitch hopped down from the couch, trotting over to the picture box and slapping his paw against the little knob that shut it off—Goddess only knew how. You had to admit, the commonfolk were pretty ingenious when it came to things like that.

I ran my hands through my hair, thick and full once more. It had been almost a year since the High Covenmaster dumped me with this mangy animal. For the first few weeks I’d kept it locked in a closet, casting a silencing spell over the door so I wouldn’t have to listen to its pitiful meowing. But then as day after day went by without a single word—much less a visit—from my coven, my family, my friends… There came a point where I simply couldn’t take another moment of lonely silence. At least I could talk to Bitch and know he understood me.

It still wasn’t the same as having someone who could talk back, and it seemed like eternity since I’d been touched by another human being. One thing you can say about witches, we’re touchy feely people. And when I say ‘touchy feely,’ I really mean that we have a tendency to get our fertility ritual on anywhere and everywhere.

Bitch hopped back up on the couch, and I narrowed my eyes, a somewhat sick idea forming in my mind. Okay, ‘somewhat sick’ was an understatement—this was one hundred percent sickness—but it wasn’t as if my animus could get any blacker, right? Hell, I’d already lost a literal piece of myself that night when I’d used magic to enslave, and it wasn’t the wicked part of me that came away with a blackened hole.

I stood and grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck, ignoring the way he hissed and wriggled as I carried him through the ocean of bottles that was my living room into the downstairs altar room. I slammed the door shut behind me, literally tossing Bitch onto the large, low worktable at the center of the room, where he landed with a thud and a screech.

“Shut up,” I snapped, and he fell silent. I yanked a stool to the table and sat down, propping my elbows on the wood as I stared down at the cat, trying to figure out the best way to word this.

“Listen to me carefully, kitty,” I said in a low voice, “because this offer is only going to come once. If you turn it down now, I swear to you it will *never* be made again.”

The cat sort of shifted, looking like he thought maybe I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had, giving him a choice in this—he did belong to me, after all. But while I had committed many crimes, the one thing I wouldn’t do was stoop completely to his level.

“Do you miss your body, kitty? The one you were born with?” Bitch stiffened. “What would you do for a chance to wear it again, even for a single day?”

His tail flicked, whiskers twitching.

“I will make you a deal. I will turn you into a boy, and you can stay a boy for the rest of the day. Don’t think that means you can act like a boy,” I added quickly. “You’ll stay the animal that you are on the inside. No walking on two legs, no sitting at tables, no eating or drinking with your hands, but you will get to be in your original body again.” I pushed the stool back, rising to my feet. “In exchange, you will do something for me.”

I reached down, cupping my cock through the worn out silk boxers I was wearing, caressing it until I felt it begin to harden. Kitty cat now officially looked terrified, which was all fine and dandy by me.

“Like I said, I’ll only make this offer once. You turn it down now, you’ll be grooming yourself with your tongue for the rest of your life. You agree,” I shrugged, “and maybe we can make a deal.”

Now we’d see which was stronger: his sense of shame or his longing to be human again.

The animal’s entire body was shaking now, and for an instant I felt a touch of sympathy, then Lucille’s face flashed through my mind and any sympathy was demolished in her wake. This bastard deserved everything he got.

“Well,” I said in a careless voice. “What do you say?”

Bitch stared at me for a long moment, eyes brimming with fear, then slowly, oh-so-slowly, he nodded his head.

Apparently the urge to be a person was quite a bit more powerful than the need to uphold his dignity. Not that it was likely he had much dignity left, having spent the past year pissing in litter boxes and getting flea baths and eating cheap, off-brand cat food. All the sort of dehumanizing things I would never, ever have asked of my darling Lucille.

I reached out, loosening the sparkly, hot pink collar around his neck enough that it wouldn’t choke him when he transformed, then I went to the cupboard and grabbed a general use termination spell. Since human was technically his true form, this would be enough to end the spell my father had cast, though I would have to craft a spell to make him a cat once again. And for that I needed…

Bitch let out a yelp as I plucked a chunk of fur from his back and set it in a dish off to the side. I moved back in front of him, staring down with what I hoped were cold, emotionless eyes. It was difficult to do cold and emotionless when you were sizzling with anger and hate on the inside.

“When I change you, do not speak without my permission or unless I ask you a direct question. You can meow if you want to,” I laughed, a little cruelly, at the idea, “in fact, I want to hear you meow. But you will not speak unless I say so, and if you do speak then you will call me Master. Understood?”

Bitch nodded his little head, and I raised the spell, triggering it using the magic within me.

It was over in an instant. One second there was a tiny black cat, the next there was a naked boy with terrified blue eyes wearing a pink, glitter covered cat collar.

Immediately he moved to cover his nakedness, but I caught his hands, forcing him onto his back on the table. He let out a whimper. Once again I felt a flash of sympathy, and once again the memory of my beautiful familiar, the love of my life, swept it away in an instant.

“Stay on your back, Bitch,” I said, then let out a chuckle. “‘Bitch’ is such a harsh name for my pretty little kitty, isn’t it? I guess it would fit better if you’d condemned yourself to life as a mutt instead of a mangy feline. I think we need something sweeter for my cutesy kitten.” I reached out, running my fingers through his hair like he was still in cat form, and I was petting his head. “What about… Hm…” I laughed again. “I know! How about Fluffer? You *are* all cute and fluffy as a cat and, well, you’re about to become the other kind of fluffer as well.” I dropped my boxers to the floor, revealing my half-hard erection and making the boy flinch.

“Yes, I think Fluffer is a fantastic name.” I walked around the table until I was standing at the end behind his head, then I grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked, scooting him backward until his head was hanging off of the edge, tilted back at an uncomfortable looking angle. “Now meow for me, kitty.”

Fluffer-formerly-known-as-Bitch remained silent, and anger flooded my senses. I reached out, slapping him across the face. “Do you really want to be a bad pussy, Fluffer?”

I squatted down a little so that we were face to face. “I don’t think you do, kitten.” My voice had a dangerous edge to it. “I really don’t think you do.”

Another short silence, then, “Uh, meow?” A word, spoken like any other word. I snorted, shaking my head.

“Put a little more effort into it. Show me that cute little pussycat on the inside, baby.” I reached down, stroking his chin, holding it tight when he tried to flinch away. “Don’t half ass things with me, cat.”

The boy shook his head, cheeks a flaming red color.

I sighed, rubbing my eyes. “Fluffer,” I said, my voice unusually gentle. I reached out again, fingers caressing his cheek this time. “I know you’re afraid of me, and I don’t blame you—for that. One thing you can count on, though, is that I will give you the cold, hard facts. I didn’t lie to you That Night, did I?”

The boy bit his lip, shaking his head slowly.

“Okay, well here’s the truth about today, pet. You need to do what you’re told, or you’ll be very sorry.” I ran my thumb across his pink, perky lips. “I could lie and tell you that this isn’t going to be painful, but I’m not interested in lying. This,” I gestured vaguely between our bodies, “is going to be very painful and it’s going to be very scary and it’s going to be very, very degrading. Because I want it to be painful and scary and degrading. I want you to suffer like she did.” My voice hardened. “However, I promise you that what I’ll do to you if you don’t obey me will be a thousand times worse.” I smiled down at him with cold eyes. “Now meow for me, animal.”

Somehow his face managed to get even redder, his eyes going unusually bright as he fought back tears. Then, just when I thought I was going to have to slap him again, he let out a long, loud meow.

I burst into laughter, doubling over a little. “Ah, there we go! Meow, indeed. Now…” I paused, pretending to contemplate it, “…beg to suck my cock.”

The tears were cascading full throttle now. “P-please let me… let…” He gave a choked sob, shaking his head even as he spoke the last words. “…Let me s-suck your cock.”

“Master,” I snapped, though in all honesty, the flood of tears was starting to make me feel a tiny bit guilty.

“Master,” he agreed, rubbing snot off on his bare shoulder before returning his head to its position hanging off the edge of the table.

“Now open your mouth, pussy.”

When he made no move to obey, I reached out, pinching his nostrils closed. After a minute or so he had no choice but to open his mouth to breathe, and I slipped the head of my dick between his lips.

I didn’t waste any time, immediately pressing my cock toward the back of his throat. “We’ll see if you’re as capable a deep throater as your people’s precious President.”

No even halfway down the shaft, Fluffer began to gag, and I pulled back slightly.

“Don’t fight it, baby, don’t fight it,” I murmured. “It’s gonna happen no matter what—too late to back out now—so there’s no point in fighting it. Relax your throat and let it happen like a good bitch.” I began to thrust in lightly, slipping it a little further down each time. Spittle leaked from Fluffer’s mouth, dripping along his nearly upside-down face toward his eyes. He lifted a hand, making moves to wipe it off, but I caught his wrist and shoved it back down beside him.

“No, no, pussy. This is a messy job. You’re going to get sloppy—real, real sloppy—and you’re going to thank me for it when we’re done, like the slut you are inside.” I paused. “In fact, we’re going all the way down right now, bitch. You’re going to take my big, black cock ’til your nose is buried in my balls.”

Fluffer started to whimper, but the sound was cut off by gagging as I shoved in deeper, leaning my weight against his face and pressing my cock all the way down. I held it there until I heard the unmistakable sounds of retching, then pulled back until the head of my now sticky dick was only brushing his lips.

“Spit it out,” I ordered. “Don’t you dare try and fucking swallow it. Spit it out.” After a moment, Fluffer obeyed, the rancid mixture of puke and saliva bubbling out of his lips then running down his face. “Don’t close your eyes,” I snapped when he tried to shield them from the mess. “Look at me, slut.”

I pressed my cock back between his lips and thrust deep. “That’s a good girl,” I murmured, trying to fight off the orgasm I could feel rising. I wanted this to last, for him to really suffer. I pulled out almost all the way then shoved in as far and as hard as I could, then I did it again and again and again, taking great pleasure in watching the bodily fluids spill out of his mouth and run down his face into his hair. “And now we’re going to hold it.”

I shoved back in as deep as I could go, until his face was buried in my pubes, then I clamped my hands behind his head, holding him in place as I counted backward very slowly. “10, 9, 8, 7…” He only made it to seven before he began to struggle, the gagging and retching sounds no longer discernible from each other. “…6, 5, 4, 3, 2… and… 1.”

I released the boy’s head and he immediately turned it to the side, vomiting onto the floor with a sickened and horrified expression on his young face. That look was enough to push me to the edge, and I wrapped a hand around my cock, massaging it as I stood over him, shaft pointed at his face.

“Open your mouth,” I said, and apparently the last half hour was enough to break any dreams of rebellion he might have had, because he obeyed with a dull look on his face. His eyes were red and watery, possibly from his earlier tears or possibly from our little adventures in Watergate, plus his face and hair were streaked with spit and vomit and pre-cum. But he was about to have more than just pre-cum on that pretty face.

I grunted as cum spat from my cock, some landing in his mouth, some spewing across his face. Fluffer made a face as I used the tip of my dick to rake the semen that spattered outside his mouth down to his lips and fed it to him.

“Tasty, right?” I smirked “Better than cat food, anyway.”

Another wave of guilt rolled over me as Fluffer pushed himself into a sitting position on the table, a dead look in his eyes, but I forced it away. The bastard deserved this.

“Now what do you say?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

He stared at me blankly, and I sighed.

“What do you say when someone does you a favor? Because this *was* a favor. Deep inside you’re an animal, and animals like this sort of thing.” I reached out, running a hand through his filthy hair. “You know you loved it, didn’t you? So what do you say?”

Fluffer looked down, staring at his temporarily human body in silence for a long moment before whispering:

“Thank you, Master.”


End file.
